“You could come to the show on a date, or you could bring your mum, or you could bring your kids or your grandma,” says Chelsea Wilson of her and Fem Belling's new show, GRRRL Power, which is launching at this year’s Melbourne Fringe.
Wilson wrote and directed GRRRL Power with vocalist and stage performer Fem Belling. The pair – who star in the show alongside Parvyn Singh and Francoise D’Argent – were eager to pay tribute to the “rebels, pioneers, queens and femme fatales of the girl band revolution.”
“Being two women in the music industry and talking about so many women who have paved the way and conquered the charts and put out great records, we thought we should celebrate them,” says Wilson.
GRRRL Power at Melbourne Fringe
- Dates 02 – 06 Oct
- Time 6:30pm, 4:00pm, 5:30pm (60 minutes)
- Venues Festival Hub: Trades Hall – ETU Ballroom
- Tickets and more information here
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So, what is a girl band? “The term girl band is usually used in a pop context,” says Wilson. “But for us in this show, any band that was made up of all women, we’re just calling it a girl band.”
There have been a few decades in which girl bands were particularly influential. “The first time was in the 1960s,” says Wilson. “I think during that decade there was over 1500 girl bands that hit the charts.”
Girl bands came back in a big way in the 1990s, with the likes of En Vogue, the Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child not only dominating the charts but influencing pop music for decades to come.
In recent years, K-pop groups like BLACKPINK, NewJeans and Twice have enjoyed enormous domestic and international success, culminating in BLACKPINK’s headline performance at Coachella 2023.
Given the richness of this history, GRRRL Power covers a lot of ground in its 60-minute runtime. It’s organised into decades, beginning with the harmonised swing tunes of The Andrews Sisters in the 1940s and taking us through the hits of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
“We’ve just kind of cherry-picked a few pieces from each decade,” says Wilson, who rattles off names such as The Supremes, Labelle, The Runaways, The Bangles, The Weather Girls, Salt-N-Pepa and Destiny’s Child.
Wilson and Belling also took care to prevent the show from becoming too US- and UK-centric. For instance, there’s a song by Indian girl band Viva, a song by American Yiddish group The Barry Sisters and a song by South Africa’s Shine 4.
“We wanted to have a bit of a global look at this phenomenon – about when women get together and make music, what kind of magic can happen,” Wilson says.
There’s also a song by Japanese girl band Pink Lady, who Wilson describes as a “Japanese ABBA.” “I first came across their song UFO,’” she says, “which is this zany song about these two women saying, I’m bored by human men, I want to go to space and try and pick up an alien.”
One of Wilson’s favourite songs in the show is by Australian girl group Girlfriend, who were an overnight sensation at the turn of the 1990s. “They were in Year 11 and they were signed to a major and their first single went to number one on the ARIA charts,” Wilson says.
This song, Take It from Me, appeared on Girlfriend’s debut album, Make It Come True, in 1992, next to follow-up hits Girl’s Life and Without You.
Along with the diverse repertoire, the GRRRL Power cast represents a variety of musical and cultural backgrounds.
Francoise D’Argent makes R&B music under the solo moniker Fossey and has been a member of alternative funk and soul groups Silver Linings, Lake Minnetonka, and Raw Humps.
Punjabi-Australian performer Parvyn Singh releases electronica under the mononym Parvyn and fronts the Bollywood-influenced psychedelic outfit The Bombay Royale.
Fem Belling is originally from South Africa but got her break in London’s West End, appearing in productions of Cats, Footloose, Hairspray, and many more.
Wilson’s soul and jazz-influenced solo work has taken her to Bluesfest and Glastonbury and landed her support slots with the likes of Macy Gray, Renee Geyer and Tina Arena.
“In the show, we are ourselves,” says Wilson. “It’s not a music theatre production. It’s more of a cabaret. So, we tell a few stories and we sing the songs.”
There’s also choreography aplenty. “Once you got to that 90s era of girl bands, they were all full-on dancers. So, we’ve really gone there,” says Wilson.
GRRRL Power is on in the ETU Ballroom at Trades Hall as part of Melbourne Fringe from October 2 – October 6.
