She Who Rocks

This weekend two of Australia’s pre-eminent front women of rock-and-roll, Suze De Marchi of Baby Animals and Sarah McLeod of The Superjesus, will join forces for the ultimate rock party on the She Who Rocks tour.

Over the two-decade spans of their respective careers both Baby Animals and The Superjesus rose to prominence and gave female rock a voice. More recently both bands have reunited with a reinvigorated energy and drive, De Marchi explained this more: “we were all missing it and had some great ideas we wanted to record…I think we’ve also grown in a such a way that we don’t stress the little things musically so it’s more freeing, and we don’t worry about whether something will work or not, we just do it.”

With both bands now back in the studio and touring a rather funny chance encounter led to the initial spark that would become the She Who Rocks tour. “We were both booked for one of the Day On The Green shows and got booted off for Billy Idol, so we started talking and thought it was rather funny actually and that maybe we could just do our own tour,” said De Marchi.
From there the ladies began to spend more time together as anticipation for the shows grew, with multiple dates selling out quickly requiring the addition of extra shows. “They’re beginning to rack up now as we’re adding extra shows…it’s fantastic and heartwarming to know we’ve got a really loyal fan base that will come out and support us still,” said De Marchi.

As part of the She Who Rocks branding, a compilation album of tracks from women who shaped rock-and-roll was also put together, from which a dollar of every sale is going towards the Ovarian Cancer Foundation, which De Marchi describes as “a nice way for us to give back to the community through a great cause.”

Ahead of the tour De Marchi was clearly excited to be returning to the road and performing in front of fans again: “It’s really exciting to get back out there and see everyone on the road again. Obviously we’ll be doing some of the new stuff but we’ll also be playing lots of the stuff people know and love while giving it everything we’ve got.”

Given this mindset and the pairing of two of the genres most important bands and individuals, this show is bound to be a great night for anybody whether they be rock-and-roll fans or not.

Jun 6, Metro Theatre, 624 George St, Sydney, $46+b.f, metrotheatre.com.au