FRINGE FESTIVAL – 27 CLUB, Perth, 3 Feb 2026

Shane | 4 February 2026 | Reply

FRINGE FESTIVAL – 27 CLUB, Perth, 3 Feb 2026
Rechabite Hall, Perth, Western Australia
Review & pictures by Shane Pinnegar

You won’t find a more authentic rock n’ roll experience at this year’s Perth Fringe Festival than the lauded 27 Club featuring Sarah McLeod (Superjesus), Carla Lippis (Mondo Psycho) and Dusty Lee Stephensen (The Wanderers).

This lineup (plus Jebediah/Bob Evans frontman Kevin Mitchell, sadly unavailable at the last minute for this season due to a family emergency) has been touring this show for five years now, and it shows – the production is no pale imitation, no sanitized cover band, no nostalgic cash grab.

This is rock n’ roll, full force and in your face – you know, the way it SHOULD BE.

The 27 Club pays homage to the rock legends who passed at only 27 years of age, due to excess and misadventure. What could be more rock n’ roll than that?

Robert Johnson (featured only on playback, sadly), Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse are all featured here – and these icons may have died far too young, but they left behind a collective body of work which can only be described as foundation stones for all that came later.

Each of the leads shared the heavy lifting vocally – Stephensen tearing up his axe throughout, McLeod picking up an electric or acoustic guitar as required – and share tracks such as Hendrix’s Fire and Foxy Lady (some great Pulp Fiction-style dancing from Lippis), Janis’s Cry Baby (McLeod’s powerful and soulful wail as she leaps onto the stage sends chills down spines), Me & Bobby McGee (McLeod & Lippis acapella with the Rechabite pub choir in full voice), The Doors’ Break On Through, Roadhouse Blues/People Are Strange and Light My Fire, Nirvana’s All Apologies (a gentle, acoustic take with McLeod shining on the lead, Lippis and Stephensen providing perfectly atmospheric harmonies), Come As You Are and a frenzied Breed, McLeod doing a lap of the crowd during the solo section, and Winehouse’s Back To Black (Lipppis’s vocals garnering the admiration of McLeod on stage as well as everyone off it) and Rehab.

Interspersed between songs is a little of the lore of these classic performers, but it’s the music which is the focal point, and a medley of all the featured artists is a fitting penultimate effort before they close with an epic take on Joplin’s Piece Of My Heart.

Magic. So good I think we’ll go again before the season finishes in a week and a half.