The first stop of my NXNE experience was The Great Hall and what an amazing venue it is. Some of the bands I’ve seen there (Hooded Fang, Little Girls, Maylee Todd) have never let me down. I now have another one to add to that list, Belle Phoenix. From the second I heard this woman, I knew I had to see her live.

Originally from Australia, Belle Phoenix struts onstage in a very proper looking suit with her short jet-black, pulp fiction style haircut. The first thing she says, “I feel like I’m on a leash,” as she pulls the microphone wire from around her neck. With such a distinctive and sharp look, she works the crowd and the stage, singing songs like Dead Inside and Some Kind Of Cactus. And then striptease begins – off comes the blazer, then the shirt, eventually finishing her set in her bra. Definitely a crowd pleaser!

The rest of her show was a mix of her playing guitar and rolling around on the floor in fits of passion, which I thought was some kind of awesome. Belle Phoenix, please come back soon, you give new meaning to the words ‘girl power’.