Peaches at Majestic Theatre
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At age 40, the Canadian-born Merrill Nisker, a.k.a. Peaches, is best known for exploring awkward sexual themes through the medium of highly questionable rapping. However, what she lacks in flow, she made up for with unquenchable ambition as a performance artist as she scaled the balcony of the Majestic Theatre during her song “Hit It Hard” on Saturday night. As the show kicked off, the lights dimmed and her backing band Sweet Machine jumped the stage in matching reflective suits and luchador masks as a choir rendition of The Divinyls' “I Touch Myself” blasted from the speakers. Finally, Peaches came out to roaring applause, masked and wearing what appeared to be a giant pink garbage bag around her torso, and the foursome slammed into heavy synth-punk of “Show Stopper.”
Peaches' set stretched across her four-album discography, cranking out nearly everything from her ambitious new album I Feel Cream, and every other song seemed to warrant another tacky costume change. Before “Trick Or Treat,” Peaches removed the garbage bag to reveal a gold and black unitard with shoulder pads that dwarfed her head. “Keep my clothes kinky and a hole in the sheet / never go to bed without a piece of raw meat,” she sang, as drummer Matthias Brendel hammered out a groove that would make The Gap Band jealous. When Peaches ripped into the soulful wailing of “Talk To Me,” two bikini-clad dancers emerged, wearing nasty blonde wigs that completely covered their faces.
Throughout the set, Peaches often stood on monitors, crawled over the audience, and climbed up the P.A. speakers as random audience members scrambled to touch her. It wasn't unusual for her to get felt up by fans, but she was an impressively good sport about it.
After the dance-a-thon of “Shake Your Dix,” Peaches fled the stage and mega-babe guitarist Saskia Hahn played a ridiculously bombastic guitar solo. During the next song, “Lose You” (a highlight from I Feel Cream that showcases Peaches' surprisingly good singing voice), Peaches wore a white cape that connected at her wrists. When she lifted her arms, two synced-up singing faces were projected onto the white sheet that hung between her arms and body. After the band closed its set proper with “Fuck The Pain Away,” Peaches came back for three separate blocks of encores. First, the band returned to play “Lover Tits” and the pulsing house jam “I Feel Cream,” an excellent tune that found Peaches channeling Debbie Harry as her voice soared into the audience. The night finally reached its end as Hahn and keyboardist Conner Rapp each picked up illuminated keytars for “Take You On.”
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