Chrissy Amphlett is irreplaceable, but if one woman would have been able to step into her shoes and front the legendary Divinyls for a one-off reunion show, it was going to be The Preatures’ Izzi Manfredi.
Joining original Divinyls members Mark McEntee, Richard Harvey and Rick Grossman, she and fellow Preature Jack Moffit played a special gig for the closing night of the Perth Fashion Festival last night, and as the footage shows, she absolutely nailed it.
While some were skeptical of a Divinyls gig without the band’s iconic frontwoman, Izzi Manfredi seems to embody Chrissy Amphlett in every way, and was a perfect choice to be the first singer to front the band live in almost a decade.
Hitting all the classic notes like ‘I Touch Myself’ and ‘Pleasure And Pain’, Manfredi was clearly honoured to get the call-up, telling fans last month “We would’ve moved heaven and earth to do this show.”
“My job is to do Chrissy proud here,” she added, “but also honour the life of the songs and the original lineup. It’s a moment in time.”
That she did, and while nobody can ever take Chrissy’s place, the grainy fan-shot footage that’s emerged so far is a wonderful reminder of what made Chrissy and the Divinyls one of Australia’s greatest bands of all time.
