By Yuri Woodfall – Sound Check Entertainment
There are concerts, there are performances, and then there is whatever the hell happens when Peaches takes over a stage.
On September 2nd, Peaches brought her No Lube So Rude Tour to Edmonton’s Midway Music Hall for a night that was unapologetically filthy, theatrical, bizarre and completely unlike just about anything else currently touring.
The Canadian electroclash icon, born Merrill Nisker, has spent more than two decades challenging conventions surrounding sex, gender, ageing and what performers – particularly women – are allowed to do onstage. At Midway, she showed absolutely no interest in becoming more restrained with age.
If anything, Peaches has somehow become even more Peaches.
From the moment she took the stage, Midway was transformed from a concert venue into something resembling an industrial rave, performance-art exhibition and extremely NSFW fever dream rolled into one.
Touring behind No Lube So Rude, her first full-length studio album in more than a decade, Peaches built a show around elaborate costumes, choreography, pounding electronic music and imagery that ranged from hilarious to completely absurd.
Subtlety was never going to be on the menu.
“Hanging Titties” opened the night and immediately established exactly what kind of show Edmonton was in for. There was no easing the audience into Peaches’ world – she threw open the doors and invited everyone straight into the madness.
“Whatcha Gonna Do About It” followed before “Rub” and “I U She” reached further back into her catalogue. Songs like “Fuck Your Face,” “Vaginoplasty” and “Slippery Dick” kept the show’s gleefully confrontational attitude front and centre.
Reading the song titles alone almost sounds like somebody lost a bet.
Seeing them performed by Peaches is something else entirely.
But as wild as the music and visuals were, it was Peaches’ stage presence that ultimately made the show something special.
She didn’t simply perform in front of the crowd – she played directly to them, constantly engaging with the people in front of her and feeding off their reactions. There was an almost immediate connection between Peaches and the audience, and she maintained it throughout the night with a level of command that is incredibly difficult to duplicate.
I’ve covered plenty of artists who know how to work a crowd, but the way Peaches did it at Midway was on another level. Her ability to make the entire room feel like part of the performance is something I have yet to see duplicated.
And she wasn’t alone in creating that spectacle.
Her backup dancers were an integral part of the production, appearing throughout the night in elaborate costumes designed to complement Peaches’ own increasingly outrageous looks. Rather than simply providing choreography behind the headliner, they added another visual layer to virtually everything happening onstage.
At times, the three performers looked like characters who had escaped from the same wonderfully deranged universe.
The costumes became nearly as important to the performance as the music. Rather than simply disappearing backstage and emerging in another outfit, Peaches used each transformation as another part of the show’s visual language, with the dancers’ accompanying costumes helping each new look become an entire scene.
The result was sometimes hilarious, sometimes grotesque and frequently both at exactly the same time.
And underneath all of that insanity, there was still a damn good concert happening.
“Panna Cotta Delight” and “Flip This” kept the momentum moving before “Light in Places,” “AA XXX” and “Operate” dug into different periods of Peaches’ catalogue. That mixture was important. The No Lube So Rude Tour may be built around a new chapter of her career, but Peaches wasn’t interested in pretending the previous 25 years hadn’t happened.
The electronic beats hit hard inside Midway, while Peaches commanded the stage with the confidence of someone who knew she had the room exactly where she wanted it.
Nothing about the performance felt accidental.
For all the apparent chaos surrounding her, Peaches remained firmly in control.
That’s ultimately what separates a Peaches concert from something provocative purely for shock value.
Yes, it’s obscene.
Yes, it’s ridiculous.
And yes, there are moments where you find yourself wondering what the hell you’re actually looking at.
But that’s part of the point.
Peaches has built an entire career around refusing to treat sexuality, gender or the human body as something that needs to be made comfortable for other people. More than two decades after The Teaches of Peaches, she is still challenging those expectations – only now ageing itself has become another boundary worth kicking down.
“I Mean Something” gave way to the wonderfully direct “Fuck How You Wanna Fuck,” followed by “Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business,” “Grip” and “You’re Alright.”
By this point, the line separating concert from performance art had pretty much disappeared.
And Edmonton was completely along for the ride.
Every time Peaches pushed toward the audience, the audience pushed right back. Every gesture, movement and interaction seemed to generate another reaction from the room. It wasn’t a case of an artist occasionally stopping between songs to ask Edmonton how it was doing. The interaction was woven into the performance itself.
Then came one of the biggest stretches of the night.
“Boys Wanna Be Her” remains an absolute monster live, its instantly recognizable riff cutting through the electronic chaos before “Take It” and “Be Love” carried the show toward its inevitable final act.
And really, how could a Peaches show possibly approach the finish line without “Dick in the Air”?
By the time “Fuck the Pain Away” arrived, there was no mistaking what was happening.
More than two decades after its release, it remains Peaches’ signature song and one of the defining tracks of the electroclash era. Those opening words remain instantly recognizable, and hearing the track live still carries the rebellious energy that made it notorious in the first place.
But importantly, the night didn’t end by simply retreating into nostalgia.
“No Lube So Rude” brought the performance back to the present and provided a fitting final statement from an artist who clearly has no intention of becoming a legacy act.
That’s perhaps the biggest takeaway from seeing Peaches in 2026.
She doesn’t need to prove that she can still shock people. She’s been doing that for decades.
What makes this version of Peaches interesting is that the provocation has evolved alongside her. Ageing, sexuality and the expectations placed on bodies all become ammunition for a show that essentially asks why getting older should require anybody to become quieter, safer or less outrageous.
Apparently, Peaches’ answer is: it shouldn’t.
By the end of the night, it was difficult to decide whether Edmonton had just witnessed a concert, a theatrical production, a rave or some beautifully obscene combination of all three.
That’s probably exactly the point.
At an age when plenty of artists would be expected to tone things down, Peaches seems determined to do the opposite. Her September 2 performance at Midway Music Hall wasn’t simply provocative for the sake of being provocative. It was a celebration of refusing to disappear, refusing to behave and refusing to allow anybody else to decide what growing older is supposed to look like.
Most importantly, beneath the costumes, sex, absurdity and spectacle was a performer with an unreal ability to command a room.
I’ve seen plenty of great stage performers.
I’ve never seen anyone work a crowd quite like Peaches.
It was loud. It was filthy. It was completely unhinged and ridiculous.
It was Peaches.
