Review: Rachel Collis, Ever After album launch

Rachel Collis heads for the Adelaide Fringe Festival

After attending Rachel Collis’s debut of her album Ever After, going for a Brazilian wax will not be as frightening as it used to be.

Collis’s uninhibited stage presence, powerful voice and great keyboard talent convinced me that the painful process of getting a wax is not too bad. After all, you might fall in love with your waxer just as Rachel fell in love with Pablo the hot Brazilian, or experience a strange erotic desire when the hot wax strip is removed from your leg, another experience that Rachel recounts.

For this consummate entertainer it is not a challenge to connect complete strangers in the audience with honest, unconventional and humane humor as she did when she sang, “I love Brazilian wax”.

But the relation between an eclectic collection of stories and the public is also thanks to her fantastic five-piece band – keyboard, percussion, drums, bass and trumpet.

With an indie/pop influence and a combination of acoustic and grounded sounds, this band successfully delivers music with a strong emotional impact. “Song for Steve”, a comic but tender song written to her husband, is followed by a touching ballad and then by rhythmic, upbeat piano riffs for a more comical number.

On stage Collis dazzled with a sexy but elegant red dress, red lipstick and red high heels. Her ability to express herself openly and unashamedly was evidence of her talent and confidence under the white but subtle light that throughout the performance was mainly focused upon her. Finally, her expressive postures, mobile facial expressions and powerful voice went over a treat with the audience.

Thanks to an invitation from both the Sydney Festival and Project Australia, Collis brought her band and her genuine, cheeky, sexy and infectious charm to the Riverside Hotel in Parramatta.

It is a fine, powerful and comic night that smoothly shifts from ridicule to self-discovery and love. It may just pluck at your heart strings.