IRISKAYE SIAMENDES "Rock The Night Away"

by jenny heying

With no fuss or muss, Iriskaye Siamendes walked on stage at Falling Waters and launched into “Voodoo Child”. This girl doesn’t fool around when it comes to performing. With strong tracks behind her, she gets right to the songs and lets that entertain you. She followed with “I Want You To Want Me” and with that she does make you want her.

While her voice isn’t perfect, she does belt out the tunes. She crackles somewhat and has difficulty hitting some notes, but nonetheless, you don’t really care that much. She likes to rock out and takes you with her. After all, isn’t this all about having fun? Well, Iriskaye has fun on stage and it’s contagious. How can you not love it when she does “Sweet Home Alabama”. Second Life® isn’t about being perfect, if it was, none of us would be here.

Iriskaye hits you from the onslaught. She puts on a lively show and sings the songs that you want to bounce around to. She’s accompanied on stage by her SL band, Satisfaction Parkin on guitar and keyboards with Jeyff Shippe on drums. Okay, so they aren’t really playing, but they add to the concert atmosphere and that suits an Iriskaye show fine.


I don’t know if it’s her accent or not, but something about her talking voice does it for me. I could listen all night. It’s sweet and soft, contrary to her singing voice which is a little harder but she grows on you as she performs.

And while she portrays that tougher feel especially with her opening numbers, I really feel she excels on the slower songs. When she did “Wind Of Change”, her voice seemed a little more stable. I know its fun to do the fast, driving songs, but in her case, she excels when she isn’t trying to shout out lyrics as much.

But I don’t want to criticize Iriskaye too much because I really feel if you love doing something, you should do it. Iriskaye really seems to love what she is doing. There are a lot of singers who can sing very well but suck at stage performance and vice versa. With Iriskaye you get a great performance and some decent singing. You’re out to have a good time and she is more than happy to show you one.

Iris puts her all into every song she does. I loved her version of “Rock Me Baby”, a lot of heart and soul. She covers a wide variety of both up-tempo and slower songs like “Unchained Melody”.

She doesn’t do a lot of talking between songs, preferring to let music carry the night. She does acknowledge her fans but doesn’t get carried away with stories which is fine with me.

Iriskaye has a tendency to shout or scream a little too much and that might take away from what she’s doing. I really think she has a decent voice and it carries well when she controls it. She did a marvelous rendition of “Purple Rain” that came through clearly. It’s amazing how good she can sound when she’s calm. I know her tendency is to belt out tunes, but sometimes you have to work with what you’ve got and Iriskaye does have a voice that comes across well when under control. Not many of us sound very good when we shout out songs. It was probably the best song she did and I wish there was more of that.

She turned her attention to the blues and with “Guilty”; she showed that she could sing the blues. With her voice controlled, the song was enjoyable and I found my ears perking.

While I liked her much better with controlled, slower tempo songs, Iriskaye seems to like to rock the night away and that’s okay. She looks and sounds like she’s having the time of her life and that rubs off on her audience. “Dirty Deeds”, “Every Breath You Take” and “I Will Be Right Here Waiting For You” finished an hour long set that seemed to go by very quickly, so I know I had fun.

If you like having fun and seeing a performer who inspires that, get to an Iriskaye Siamendes show. She’s infectious.