Live Review: Peaches, Black Cracker, Betty Grumble

The crowd is building slowly and Betty Grumble takes the stage a little late to a small-but-instantly appreciative crowd. Rolling around on the stage with a garbage bin on her head, she lifts it off to reveal a ginormous wig and drag queen makeup. After a quick-but-powerful Welcome To Country, she wastes no time in getting down and dirty, stripping, changing skimpy costumes and rubbing her naked breasts on the security guard's head. Her performance finishes with her gyrating to Don't Cha by Pussycat Dolls, with her arse covered in what appears to be shit? Grumble didn't just cross the line, she torched it and scattered the ashes.

Black Cracker is the international support for the entire Peaches national tour and brings the night back to some sense of normality. This isn't to say that his beats/rhymes performance is standard by any means. Two large video screens adorn the back of his stage, playing video clips that Cracker informs us he made himself. Joyously including the large audience in his infectious, danceable grooves, it's as if we are watching an avant-garde Kendrick Lamar in 1925 Berlin. It's a strong, focused and engaging performance with the crowd coming to the party.

The punters are now packed on the dancefloor and mezzanine, and it's great to see so many confidently flying their freak flag. Peaches gigs are clearly safe spaces for LGBTI people and it makes for an inclusive and truly fabulous vibe. The star of the show blends sexual liberation with old-school punk physicality - and the crowd lap it up from the word go. Each different raunchy dance move is met with screams and squeals of delight from the crowd. Working her way through a set of underground anthems such as Rub, Talk To Me and Fuck The Pain Away she is soon joined on stage by two giant dancing vaginas. The mix is on point and the electro-grime backing tracks have everyone dancing, singing along and pumping their fists in the air.

Known around the world for her theatrics, Peaches proves why she's the best with her stellar production values. During her new song Dick In The Air, a ten-foot tall condom inflates across the dancing front rows and, held up by her now-enraptured fans, our queer queen of song proceeds to walk like some futuristic, sexual sheepdog beyond the stage inside the now-bulging plastic phallus. Closing with Dumb Fuck, she leaves the stage to Melbourne's cheers.