By LUKE VOOGT
The Fabulous Singlettes will come to Geelong for the first time this month – and they’re ready to sing up a storm.
The playful, three-woman cover group will sing the greatest hits of the ’60s, ’70s and beyond at Geelong Performing Arts Centre on 27 August.
The Aussie trio of Naomi Eyers, Melissa Langton and Diane Dixon have been playing together for almost 20 years.
Eyers helped found the group in 1986, at a time when there “weren’t many retro acts around”.
She said the powerful soul singers and iconic pop bands of the ’60s inspired her and “the original girls” to fill that void.
“I think we were one of the first ’60s tribute acts in Australia.”
“It was such a great musical era, a melting pot of blues, soul and pop – so it’s always been a fun show.”
The Fabulous Singlettes bring dance moves to die for, frocks galore and beehives that are “a triumph of hairspray over gravity”, Eyers said.
“It was a great era for hairstyles.”
But it is the Singlettes’ harmonies and sly, camp humour that have seen them perform around the world.
They have played in TV specials, Royal Variety Shows, and London’s West End, reaping awards and rave reviews along the way.
The Fabulous Singlettes celebrate the ’60s covers of girl group artists like The Ronettes, The Supremes, The Chiffons, Dusty Springfield and many more.
They combine this with outrageous humour, which sends up the fashions and attitudes of the decade that changed the world.
“It’s very hard to be too serious with this,” Eyers said.
“We are three girls of very different shapes and sizes but all wearing the same outfits, so I think there’s some inherent humour in that.”
The girls dig up the styles of an era that had most of America’s women performers staggering under the weight of hair-dos and lashings of mascara.
Their latest show includes several costume changes as the girls swap the beehives of the ’60s to the Farrah flicks of the ’70s.
“It does not matter what age group you’re in, you’ll know the songs,” Eyers said.
“We get them in and give them a good time,” she said.