leila and wing. can you pick who's who?Wel­ling­to­ni­ans are spoilt for choice when it comes to their for­eign-born-but-now-kiwi female singing stars tonight, with two of the coun­try’s most dis­tinct­ive per­formers put­ting on shows around town.

First up is the debut Wel­ling­ton appear­ance of the world fam­ous Wing at the Mer­cure Hotel on Wil­lis Street. Wing, an expat Hong Kong res­id­ent who now lives in Auck­land, has been, err, enter­tain­ing New Zeal­anders with her unique take on all sorts of clas­sic hits – from Abba to AC-DC – over the last few years. The songs really have to be heard to be believed (to do so, vis­it her web­site and head over to the down­loads page). Some­how the makers of South Park heard of Wing’s idio­syn­crat­ic singing style, and she recently fea­tured (as her­self) in an epis­ode from the latest series. Now that’s fam­ous.

Per­haps a touch more ser­i­ous in her approach is the extraordin­ar­ily tal­en­ted Lon­don-born (of Ghanai­an her­it­age) Leila Adu, who will be releas­ing her second album tonight at Happy. Leila has recor­ded the album with a who’s who of loc­al Wel­ling­ton tal­ent, includ­ing the likes of loc­al jazz-legend Jeff Hende­r­son, ex-Mut­ton­bird gui­tar­ist and now pro­du­cer-extraordin­aire Dav­id Long, and ex-Trin­i­ty­Roots mem­ber Ricky Gooch. Sup­port­ing Leila will be Sam Scott of The Phoenix Found­a­tion, doing a nice low-key solo set.