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.