Cover Image: The Club 27 band in full jam beneath a backdrop of rock icons, setting the tone for the high‑energy tribute show, photo by Sheldon Ang.

Fringe World, 27 Club
Rechabite Hall at The Rechabite
Until February 15

When Kurt Cobain died in 1994 at the age of 27 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound his mother Wendy said, “Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club”.

Wendy was referring to the fact that Kurt died at the same age as several iconic musicians — the blues legend Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and, a few years later, Amy Winehouse — which put them into a myth-laden corner of the pantheon of artists who all went to rock’n’roll heaven (or is it hell?)  too young.

That number has now come to stand for the exhilaration and perils of rock stardom. At 27 these icons were old enough to establish substantial bodies of work, yet still so young that it’s not surprising they struggled with both the pressures of superstardom (the demands of performing, creative burnout, physical exhaustion) and vulnerable to the excesses that would kill them (booze, drugs).

With that unparalleled body of work and with rivetting, heart-breaking stories behind them it was a no-brainer for a group of performers to get together to honour the world’s most exclusive club (one that nobody really wants to join).

Thankfully, the three leads — Sarah McLeod of The Superjesus fame, Adelaide cabaret specialist Carla Lippis and Dusty Lee Stephenson (The Wanderers) — and the the trio of locally sourced musicians backing them moved well beyond tribute-band level, fully inhabiting Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and Winehouse and, in an oddly alchemical way, folding them all into one doomed boundary-pushing rock god. 

Appropriately, the show began appropriately with Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was delivered with such power that I had to check to see if the mostly older audience was not crashing and smashing into each other as in the epoch-defining video clip. They weren’t but there was a glint in many of those middle-aged eyes.

Interestingly, when they moved on to Hendrix’s Fire it was not Stephenson who took on the vocals but Lippis. Surprisingly, it works, with Lippis’ big Lady Gaga–ish pipes echoing Jimi’s soaring guitar.

And then Lippis slipped into Winehouse’s classic Rehab, channeling the British soul and jazz legend’s famously rich and fluid contralto but giving it a rock edge to match the artists being celebrated.

While Lippis brings a bit of Broadway chutzpah to her presence and vocal performance, McLeod out-Joplin’s Joplin in celebrating the rock’n’roll bad girl, telling a great story about the Texan trouble-maker’s marriage and the betrayal that sent her back to San Francisco and to immortality.

McLeod’s full-throated versions of Cry Baby, Mercedes Benz, Move Over, Piece of My Heart and, best of all, Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee sent the audience back to the glory days of classic rock and a performer who put her heart and soul on the line every time she sang (McLeod even sang standing on top of the bass drum, crazy 60s style).

While the women’s voices were the stars of the show my personal highlight was the tribute to Jim Morrison because The Doors are the 60s band I most would have loved to have seen. In my dream concert I’m in San Francisco or Los Angeles at one of those infamous concerts when audiences waited in anticipation for what the Lizard King would do next.

Stephenson doesn’t have Morrison’s voice (who has?). But he is a great-looking dude, with long hair, beard and broad shoulders, and has enough swagger that during the band’s powerhouse performance  Roadhouse Blues I was sent tumbling back to a time that still holds sway over a big part of our culture (it was just a glimmer of rock’n’roll heaven but enough to have me beaming).

Club 27 is really just a tribute show with smatterings of backstory in between the songs. But the quality of the band and the stylish way one song bleeds into the next and reveals surprising connections makes for a hugely entertaining 70 minutes that showcases both what a huge loss was the early demise of these artists and how great music transcends generations, time and even death.

27 Club runs at the Rechabite until Sunday the 15th February, for tickets and more information, visit: https://fringeworld.com.au/whats-on/27-club-fw2026