Peaches at the Royal Festival Hall review – ‘shake yer dix for the princess of electro-punk’

Peaches

★★★★ by Ifan Llewelyn

If you have yet to encounter Canadian electro-punk princess Peaches, then you’re missing out. Most are familiar with her break-out hit Teaches of Peaches’ “Fuck The Pain Away”, its dark, sexed-up heavy tech beats paired with explicit lyrics making it an instant hit with the Y2K generation. The 52-year old Berlin-based club creature has long developed a cult following with die-hard fans truly losing their minds at their spirited exultations.

Provocative doesn’t quite do her justice, with her sex-positive, queer, feminist performances pushing the limits of both social behaviours and, let’s face it, good taste. Inside the austere brutalist structure of the renowned Royal Festival Hall, her flouting of convention becomes atomically evident. Whether Peaches was performing flanked with vagina-faced backing dancers or two giant inflated phallic gossamer tubes, There’s Only One Peach with the Hole in the Middle surrounds the performer in a kooky world of her own creation.

Welcoming us to this world of squirting gender fluids and thrusting sperm-headed creatures is drag punk organism Anitta Drink, who opens the show with a number, drumming up excitement for the woman of the hour. Peaches finally vaults onstage covered in what can only be described as a hairy pink poncho, which we’re sure is a fairly direct euphemism. The staging is simple, with a bare stage cut off into band sections, with a few raised platforms on which to perform a few numbers. Doing the heavy lifting in this non-stop all-out queer phantasmagoric orgy is the lighting, which cut the performance into chapters, from an artsy warm orange lowlight, to stark neon green and pink lazer-scapes. 

Taking to the stage with her are 40 musicians and performers, from areal acrobatic artists to tuba players, which give the performance the feeling of a travelling circus. Since community is so integral to our current conception of what it means to be queer, it’s great to see her embrace her supporting cast, giving each of them the chance to shine. Though it was initially stilted by some empty interludes, the 110-minute-long performance sustains your beguilement. If it’s not dark, silhouetted spirits writhing under her red gown, then its frantic tapping of a bright green laser harp. Then out of nowhere comes a projected Iggy Pop ready to perform an inter-media duet because… well, why not?!

The evening’s highlights have to include a delicate areal acrobatic show performed with green lasers shooting out of the performer’s ass, with a topless Peaches being strobe-lighted below. And yes, in case you were wondering, the strobe lighting was also emitting from someone’s behind. Then, of course, we’ll mention again the two giant translucent penis-shaped structures which unfurled across the audience during “Dick In The Air”, with dancers clambering to their tips to shoot out some silly string. Yes, really.

A true celebration of her two-decade-long career, this evening is a complete immersion in the transgressive power of Peaches. In a world curated by her, dressed in the bombastic designs of Charlie Le Mindu, and celebrated in the dance style of the “Clusterfuck” dance troupe, there’s little room for labels and prejudice. What makes this performance more than your typical kooky queer club night is an overriding message that a queer-feminist agenda is one worth putting weight in. Tackling prejudice, hatred and most recently agism, Peaches’ show is one with an agenda that’s far greater than getting you to “shake yer dix”. 

There’s Only One Peach with the Hole in the Middle at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre on 28th August. SouthbankCentre.co.uk

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