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Picture this, walking down a dimly lit alley way in Melbourne’s inner city and fronted with a burlesque style sign “The Butterfly club”. Then walking under a bounty of twittering lights to where Backseat Diamond will be performed. The Mow-town Cabaret stars Megan Kozak (Mary, the slightly hilarious psychotic back-up singer), the secretly in love Security guard Chris (Chris Wilcox) and a quick-witted pianist, Stephanie Lewendon-Lowe as Steph

Echoing up the first set of stairs was a mixture of mow-town and punk rock music leading you to the box office; after collecting your tickets you make your way up two more sets of stairs and down a hall way where an usher greats you and offers you a drink to take in. The usher was dressed prim and proper which set the mood for an amazing hour of mow town funk. Our first look into the story of a back-up singer, whose pitch range closed in on singers like Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin, burst through the doors with “Ain’t no mountain high enough”, which there surely wasn’t with the amount of stairs to climb to get there.

On stage sat Steph at the piano and “Mary” was trying to convince the audience that the other back-up singers, and lead vocalist, must have food poisoning. Mary continues to pursue her dream of being in the spotlight, which she advises the audience to “Don’t dream it’s over because there’s no mountain high enough”. She wiggles through her favourite songs “My boyfriend’s back” (The Angels), “My guy” (Mary Wells) and “Son of a Preacher man” (Dusty Springfield) while her shrills weren’t brought to justice due to the room acoustics. None the less, it was difficult to not bop along to the songs and feel at home. Mary had said “I am too God damn white for soul” which she proved wrong as she belted out “R.E.S.P.E.C.T” (Aretha Franklin) with an audience member, demonstrating her powerful voice amplitude and why she should be in the spotlight. Enter Chris, the love-struck Security guard and a fight breaks out as she denies locking the other singers in their room. As Chris lies knocked out on the floor, Mary starts to sing “I’ve never been to me” (Charlene) and Steph chimes in that she can’t sing this which then lead to a comedic battle of “Yes I can, and just play the music” and “No you can’t Mary”. Chris then wakes up and Mary is quick to distract him from calling the police by encouraging him to open-up about his dreams of being a Rockstar. As Chris picks up the guitar, he mentions “Luckily, I always carry a pick in my pocket”. Lucky he was as he sung “What about me” (Moving pictures) because he was able to make the song move to his unique voice tones, and Mary’s back up singing brought the song to life. When both Mary and Chris performed together, I am sure that most of the audience, including myself had goose bumps. As the performance progressed Mary’s voice relaxed more and the duo became entwined in songs “You’re the voice” (John Farnham) and “You’ve got nothing I want” (Cold Chisel), accompanied by Steph’s fluent piano playing the performance left you feeling like you’ve been to a music concert that played all of your favourite music.

Backseat Diamond has been performed over the last two years with inspiration drawn from both their favourite Mow town songs and the movie “20 feet from stardom”, and a little push from Meagan’s music teacher. The duo’s talent on stage is amazing and is definitely something you should “mowsy” on down to watch, especially for a great laugh and reminisce about the classics. 

The Butterfly Club, Melbourne

13 October 2016

Published at The Australia times