Live Review: Soccer Mommy, Phoebe Go, Garage Sale

Croxton Bandroom

Even before the first of tonight’s two support bands begins, the room is almost full. It’s been another long, hot day, but there is no hint of lethargy in the crowd of mostly twentysomethings, and energy levels are set to upbeat anticipation. Local four-piece Garage Sale acknowledges that their inclusion on tonight’s bill is “pretty wild” before proving that they are a perfect fit. Fans of early nineties indie guitar pop will find plenty to like on the band’s 2022’s cassette release, Shimmer, most of which gets an airing tonight. Opening with the album’s closing track, To Confide, the tone is set with huge, distorted choruses and frequent synchronised dynamic shifts. 

On record, you can hear the influence of UK shoegaze bands; live, it's much more American indie. Songs will dip in volume to make way for Dan Sullivan’s shy, melodic vocals, and it’s an addictive combination, especially when his bandmates join him on the microphone. When the set closes with the band’s latest single, Shoes On, and the unreleased Movie, there is a definite sense of the entire venue being on board, a rare thing for the first band on a three-band bill. 

Some people seem at home on a stage, and it is an instantly relaxing experience to watch them. Phoebe Lou, the fulcrum of four-piece Phoebe Go, is one of these people. Tonight’s set is a glorious mix of songs from the band’s acclaimed EP Player and, as Lou introduces, an unnamed song “that I started writing a couple of days ago”. Opening with The Kid, Phoebe Go’s set is full of radio-ready pop songs that make you wonder why they aren’t already famous. 

The band’s musicianship is almost distractingly good, but it's Lou’s charisma that keeps drawing attention back. When she is humming her way through an unwritten verse or nailing the recent single Be The Player, Not The Poet, we love whatever she’s doing, and there’s no doubt the band leave tonight with new fans.

“We’re Soccer Mommy. Thank you for coming out,” says Sophie Allison. “We’re very happy to be back in Melbourne; it’s been a long time. We’ve got two albums of new material since we’ve last seen you.” True to her promise, tonight’s set is full of tracks from her most recent albums, the lockdown favourite Color Theory, and last year’s Pitchfork-adored Sometimes, Forever. 

Joined by her partner, guitarist Julian Powell, guitarist and keyboardist Rodrigo Avendano, bassist Graeme Goetz and drummer Rollum Haas, Allison’s music is evoked with an almost disconcerting tightness. Songs that you can drift into through headphones – layered, spacious sensitive productions with intimate vocals – are brought to life with Haas’s podium-shaking beats, Goetz’s room-shuddering bass and three guitars. Allison’s stories of physical and mental illness are vividly rendered, and the whole set, from the Portishead-dark of Unholy Affliction to the singalong choruses of Shotgun and Circle The Drain, is oddly euphoric. 

At the microphone, Allison’s face is framed by her ruler-straight hair. As soon as she leaves it, her face disappears behind flailing brown curtains as she hacks away at a guitar, living the cathartic outro of Yellow Is The Color Of Her Eyes and the surging chorus of Don’t Ask Me. “We love you, soccer mother!” a fan shouts to her between songs. She smiles and talks about how she “recently became a mother”, to which the crowd cheers warmly. “To two cats,” she continues. “They’re six months old.” She jokes about missing them so much she could get on a flight right now. 

There is a real sense that the audience feel they know a songwriter as introspective as Allison, and to be caught up in a chorus like "Sedate me all the time / Don't leave me with my mind / Paralyzed / Paralyzed / Crawlin' in my skin" speaks volumes to her songwriting ability. After a solo rendition of early favourite Still Clean, the band return for an encore of the song that introduced her to most of us, Your Dog, a gloriously unifying end to a night that should nourish the heart of anyone doubting the power of a guitar and the well-written song in 2023.

Live Review: Cowboy Junkies

Melbourne Recital Centre

Outside, a short while before showtime, pedestrians were wincing their way past the rain-lashed windows of the Melbourne Recital Centre, umbrellas inverted. Ubers hissing by in the rain, their prices surging to a height not seen since New Year’s Eve.

Inside the honey-coloured interior though, all is calm. On stage, the band quietly take their seats as the applause dies down, a delicate thrum emerges from the guitar amp and the Cowboy Junkies ease into their set with a cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let it Bring You Down. As bassist Alan Anton lurks stage left and guitarist Michael Timmins sits hunched over his electric guitar, his brother Pete busies himself across his many drums and cymbals, the sound elevated in the room, often to the detriment of the band’s greatest asset, the voice of Pete’s older sister Margo. Sitting on a stool next to a small table holding a vase of proteas and a cup of tea, her platinum blonde hair reflecting the lights, as soon as she begins to sing the room audibly relaxes. This is what we came for. 

Behind her sits Jeff Bird, who, as the show progresses, moves adeptly between harmonica, slide guitar, percussion and mandolin, which is usually heavily treated to sound like a heavily distorted electric guitar, a sound jarringly at odds with the experience of watching him play. The band’s decision to play their best-known song second, their cover of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane, is a bold move, and one that speaks to the confidence of a band whose lineup has remained unchanged for nearly 40 years.

“The promoter is here tonight,” says Margo Timmins, as the rapturous applause dies down. “When we started talking about this tour of Australia and New Zealand, I was 58. Now I’m 62,” she says, laughing. “What we’re going to try to do tonight is sell records. That’s what we’ve been trying to do for decades now. But first, we’re going to do two sets, the first is songs from the album we were planning to tour four years ago, All This Reckoning, and in the second set, hopefully, we’ll get to a song you came for.” 

The set progresses with emotive folk funk of The Things We Do to Each Other and Missing Children, and a cover of The Rolling Stones’ No Expectations and David Bowie’s Five Years, but it’s the subtle signature perfection of their own Dreaming My Dreams of You, from the band’s career-making album The Trinity Session that really shines. Whisper-close vocals, subtle instrumentation and the audience filling the space with silent enthusiasm, it’s everything a fan could hope for.

After a fifteen-minute break, a move that suggests they’ve occupied the spot of their own opening act, the Cowboy Junkies return with the bluesy warble of I Don’t Get It before moving into the opening tracks from their similarly legendary 1990 album The Caution Horses, ‘Cause Cheap Is How I Feel and the magnificent Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning. The crowd cheer the opening bars of each and Margo smiles, her warm voice inhabiting the characters of the songs. Women who feel like they could command an Annie Proulx short story or inspire a song by Alvvays.

As they begin the psychedelic boogie of Blue Guitar, Margo coughs. She walks to the back of the stage, the rest of the band seemingly oblivious as she stares at the curtain behind them before wandering off. Michael Timmins spirals away on his Telecaster, the band remaining in symmetry. After several minutes Margo Timmins returns to the stage with a cup of tea, dunks the tea bag several times, sips it and returns to her seat before delivering the final verse in spellbinding fashion.

After a brace of acoustic songs that take in another Neil Young cover (Tired Eyes) and a stunning, silencing version of Rake by Townes Van Zandt, Margo plays what she calls her “favourite Junkies song, one that makes me cry sometimes”, Bea's Song. Between these, Margo shares stories. One about a St Louis venue so mouldy because of its proximity to the Mississippi River that it was a relief it was washed away. Another about travelling to Chicago to play a concert and crying with a friend because they were about to turn 30, an impossibly huge number to two women in their late 20s. A third about how dazzling it was to walk in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens this morning and see “such wild birds, and even wilder trees”. "We couldn’t have mornings like this if you didn’t buy tickets and make the promoters happy. So, thank you,” she tells us.

Closing with their majestic Misguided Angel, A Common Disaster (“a song dedicated to my cold”, says Margo) and the dirty, dynamic blues of Walking After Midnight, what really stays with you after a Cowboy Junkies show is the sense of the people in the band. Their set may have largely comprised songs by other people, but when a band has been playing together for so long and played so many shows, the comfort they have with each other, the smoky magnificence of Margo Timmins voice when she draws in close to the microphone, or its power when she throws her head back and delivers a full-throated vibrato that even a cold can’t dull, it’s a reminder of how few bands have played as many gigs as Cowboy Junkies, and how few bands will ever have the opportunity to play even a tenth as many today.

Live Review: Cut Copy

Northcote Theatre

If there is any fatigue from the deluge of concerts and festivals lately, it’s not showing here tonight as a sold-out Northcote Theatre welcomes a rare hometown show for one of the city’s most beloved bands. “Playing Melbourne shows used to be every week for us,” says Cut Copy frontman Dan Whitford. “Now it’s every five years. It makes me reflect on the time we spent together. We dreamed of playing The Tote one day. We’ve still never played The Tote, to be honest,” he laughs, “but we’re here tonight. Thanks for supporting us all this time.”

The densely packed crowd cheers this mid-set confession. From the beginning, we are united by a strong work Christmas party vibe and gently glued to the venue floor by a combination of spilled beer, Red Bull and sticky mixers. There is a sense of gentle euphoria and release that matches the band’s glistening tones, warm burbling synths, easy tempos, and Whitford’s voice that, even 18 years on from their breakthrough album, never outstays its welcome. You could be fooled into thinking of Cut Copy as a band with six albums from which only a few banging choruses have entered the public consciousness, but tonight they prove they have a depth that few bands could rival. I’m still not sure what one fan meant when she shouted to a friend, “I hope they play the eighties song,” but it’s a safe bet that whatever she’s referring to is a glorious example of modest synth-pop with an understated chorus and a killer drop.

The set begins with the slowly swelling Cold Water, a low-key scene-setter for Feel The Love, the opening track from Cut Copy’s best-known album, the near-masterpiece In Ghost Colours. It’s the first of many instances in which the band demonstrates their approach to tension and release. Whitford knows how to deploy the components of a song to maximum effect with minimum effort. He never strains for a hook; they arrive. For a band with such metronomic music, their songs never sound stolid or forced. Guitarist Tim Hoey and bassist Ben Browning play like they’re in Sonic Youth, their slashing moves almost unrelated to the song being played. Their leads could be running a few hundred metres down the road, their sound coming out of amplifiers at the Northcote Social Club. But it doesn’t matter, they match the energy and vibe of the song, and they look extremely cool doing it.

Love Is All We Share gets ultra violet lights to go with its pulsing bass swells and a sensitivity that evokes early nineties Pet Shop Boys, but the audience uses any slowing of rhythm or dip in volume as an invitation to chat. As soon as we get another classic from In Ghost Colours, in this case, Out There On The Ice, attention is wrested back to the stage. The band deliver another example of an insistent verse, a hook-driven chorus and a teasing drop that turns the venue into a forest of arms and phones, the chorus builds up to transforming the place into a sweaty nightclub.

It’s a pattern repeated throughout the set. The slower tempos and Balearic sound of the newer songs are interspersed with crowd-pleasing bangers, and it works beautifully. Corner Of The Sky, Lights and Music, Saturdays, Need You Now, and the closing Hearts On Fire get such a visceral response from the crowd even the guy with another guy on his shoulders is jumping and is airborne. Every part of the show is so well thought out, from the setlist to the lights, to the pacing, to the moments Whitford engages with the crowd. It all speaks to a quiet intelligence that feels rare in this fast-changing scene. There is never any sense of desperation or fear of losing attention. Beats are insistent, not urgent or assaulting, Whitford’s voice always in his sizeable comfort zone. Tracks from their 2020 album Freeze Melt sound cleaner and more concerned with an internal journey than a dance floor. These newer songs, like the encore Running In The Grass, are built on gorgeous harmonies and driven by concerns that, at least to an audience eager to revisit 2008, feel a little lost. But, on headphones, walking home through dark streets, they act as a perfect flip-side to a barnstorming homecoming show and make you glad for the continued existence of Cut Copy.

Live Review: Dry Cleaning and Girl and Girl

Corner Hotel

A packed Corner Hotel is tingling with anticipation for this long-awaited show. Since their song The Magic of Meghan first appeared in playlists and on end-of-year wrap ups three years ago, there has been a buzz about Dry Cleaning, one that has grown with every critically acclaimed release and curiously thrilling video. Tonight, it finally releases in the first of two sold out Meredith sideshows.

Holding the tension of these final minutes is Girl and Girl, surely the most Melbourian band to hail from the Gold Coast. A prolific post-rock four piece with a sound like a series of removalist truck accidents – all breaking glass guitar and rhythms like collapsing furniture – their set is galvanising stuff, and all the better for the arresting presence of mulleted lead vocalist Kai James. He stamps his foot and wails into the microphone as if embodying the spirit of David Byrne at CBGBs. Then, legs entwined, steps back to push the head of his guitar against the floor, playing jagged chords like Roland S. Howard. Drummer Aunty Liss, James’s actual aunt, is an equally authoritative presence, deploying rhythms that would empower anyone with whom she shared a stage. Shame It’s Not Now, back-announced alongside a qualified recommendation for the film Bones and All, is one of several songs that match the energy of their delivery. Their “cowboy song” Strangers and Divorce Song Number 2, a highlight from their recent EP Divorce, are others. It’s a magnificent set from a band perfectly matched to the headliner. Who knew a Josef K seven-inch being played at 50 RPM could sound this good?

Red curtains part, the sold out room goes wild, and Dry Cleaning arrive. Guitarist Tom Dowse pumps his fists in the air, matching our excitement as he reaches for his Burns electric 12-string and leads the band into one of 2022’s better songs, Kwenchy Cups. “Things are shit, but they're gonna be okay / And I'm gonna see the otters / There aren't any otters / There are…” Singer Florence Shaw stands as if in an unmoving queue wearing a pleated white dress, a garment made for movement. She stares at the ceiling as if conversing with a light bulb while around her, the band - Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, drummer Nick Buxton and keyboard player Dan - channel all the energy she isn’t spending on her delivery. They feel like no other band you’ve seen.

“It’s like we’ve been texting for a long time, and we’ve only just met up,” Shaw says with a nervous smile. “So, it’s a bit scary.” Whatever fear she feels seems to dissipate quickly as the set progresses. Between-song smiles become more common, the microphone stand gripped less frequently, and when several members of the very enthusiastic crowd shout the brand of lager she's sipping, “Moon Dog!”, she looks at the can, grins and quietly tells us, “It’s nice”. Front-loaded with their faster songs - Gary Ashby, Viking Hair and Scratchcard Lanyard - Dry Cleaning’s set is a thrilling mix of old and new. The crowd sang along with the extremely wordy Her Hippo, Leafy and No Decent Shoes for Rain, which is no small thing.

On stage, Dowse and Maynard are all tattooed limbs, wide-legged stances and comically rock faces, as if in a Van Halen cover band losing a Friday night crowd, all of which accentuates Shaw’s librarian ghost vibe. The set, which showcases more atmospheric songs from their latest album, Stumpwork, pauses for the room to sing Happy Birthday to Dan, who then takes the microphone for a joyously chaotic rendition of The Misfits’ TV Casualty. Shaw returns for the almost jazzy Conservative Hell before they close their set with a blistering take of The Magic of Meaghan, a song that – with its wry assessment of the life and media treatment of Meghan Markle – inadvertently measures how the world has changed since 2019. Unsatisfied, the crowd bay for “one more song”, which the band happily provide in the form of obscure bass-driven near instrumental Tony Speaks! and Stumpwork’s opening track, Anna Calls the Arctic, a low-key sign-off to a brace of tunes which, if the brisk trade at the merch desk is anything to go by, found an extremely appreciative audience.

Live Review: Sharon van Etten, BATTS

Northcote Theatre

Tonight’s lineup has drawn a sold-out crowd to catch the sideshow of Meredith headliner, but it’s the venue that is the true opening act. Many seem to be visiting the 1500-capacity venue in Melbourne’s inner north for the first time and comments about the opulent roof, the curious layout, the thrill at having a new venue (even though it has been hosting events since 1921) and the cavernous sound, pepper conversations during the set of support act BATTS. Batts notices this and throughout her set she politely requests attention from the audience, but with many of her songs having similar strumming patterns, her limited vocal range and the acoustics stealing many of her lyrics, it’s difficult to be compelled. “This song is called Reassess the Marks,” she says. “It’s a song about discovering what you can and can’t achieve.” Even with a backing band, it’s difficult to imagine these songs as arresting attention. When Sharon van Etten guests on Blue, a song they wrote together, there is a sudden sense of personality, melodies feel less obvious and the repetitive strumming of the same guitar through the same reverb pedal that we’ve been hearing all night takes on a different mood. Even her “uplifting” singalong closing song, Keeping On, feels like acquiescing to convenience and can’t drag people’s attention away from each other.

By the time Sharon van Etten arrives the room is packed, the dialogue from a scene from Yellowjackets plays as the room darkens, the band assembles and the bright lights from the small stage reveal her silhouette. Diving into the driving bass-heavy riffs that anchor Headspace, van Etten seems to be channelling Chrissy Amphlett or Iggy Pop with her pout, her posturing and the way she moves, as if surging with power. She stalks the stage, drops to her knees, jabs her guitarist, Charley Damski, in the chest to mark the hook of a chorus before kissing his forehead, making sure all eyes are on her. As the insistent synth and drum opening of Comeback Kid fills the room, it becomes obvious that the venue’s sound troubles are, at least for tonight, over. Van Etten’s band, Jorge Balbi on drums, Devon Hoff on bass, Teeny Lieberson on vocals and synths and Damski on synthesizers and guitars, work astonishingly well together, each leaving space for the other, for van Etten, and for the room, giving her songs a sense of maximalism and confidence. The room quietens and van Etten dons a Gibson Hummingbird for Anything, one of the highlights from her latest record, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong.  “It’s hard to believe it’s been three years,” she says with a nervous smile, to the sound of raucous cheers. “We have so much to catch up on,” she laughs. “Honestly, I have so much more to say,” she waits for the cries of “we love you Sharon!” to die down before continuing. “This is another song from my new record,” she says, stepping back from the microphone as the opening bars of Come Back, its anthemic chorus and her and Liberson’s harmonies melding together with an unusual vibrancy, driving home how much more these songs take on in a live setting. 

“It’s been a long time since some of us have been around other people,” she says as the applause fades. “I’ve been told that I dance like Elaine,” she tells us. “But it’s all about connecting with people and being in a safe space and if you want to dance badly with me you have permission to do that,” she says as the band launch into Mistakes, one of the clear highlights from the show and, if the audience at Meredith is awarding Boots this year, this feels like a prime candidate, or may have already won. As soon as its chorus hits, “Even when I make a mistake, mistake / Turns out it's great” the room is filled with swaying bodies, in and out of rhythm, inhabiting exactly the sort of feeling you want from a gig like this. Every Time the Sun Comes Up follows and the band are cheered back out for an encore of Darkness Fades and Seventeen, the perfect closer to a stunning set. People literally seem to be glowing with joy as they surge to the exits and out into the street.

Live Review: Ride, Moaning Lisa

Forum Theatre

“Four little beans from Canberra at the Forum!” says Moaning Lisa bassist and vocalist Hayley Manwaring with goofy awestruck joy. “This next song is called Sun,” she continues, introducing the final song from the underrated band’s 2018 EP Do You Know Enough?. Searing harmonies and widescreen guitar from Ellen Chan elevate it in scope and sound, making it big enough to meet the packed room. The majority of the crowd seem enthralled by the four-piece, and as they bring their set to a riotous close, it’s safe to say many new fans were born.

As the crowd awaits the arrival of the Oxonian shoegaze gods, discussion in the crowd turns to what songs Ride will play. This tour is the 30th anniversary of their genre-shifting debut album Nowhere, one of the greatest musical encapsulations of youthful vigour or, in the words of David Bevan in his review of its 2011 reissue for Pitchfork, “a near-perfect record”. That will be played in full, but will we get tracks from their most recent albums? Will they keep it old school and play songs from their EPs? There must be new songs too. Their 2019 show, also at the Forum, was a surprisingly lacklustre grind through songs that lost their energy from being played by men who seemed disconnected from the feelings that inspired them. Thankfully, only seconds after arriving on stage, all memories of that performance are banished. Singer and guitarist Mark Gardener’s floppy fringe may be long gone, and eternal foil Andy Bell may be hiding stage right under a baseball cap that spends most of the night tilted toward the neck of his guitar, but the opening squall of feedback that announces Seagull is like an electric shock that sends us back to 1990. Everything sounds bigger and better than everything else. As the band launches into Kaleidoscope, it becomes apparent that there is some kind of dark magic here that goes beyond fidelity. It’s not just the crowd willing the band to be good or the subtle backing tracks augmenting the songs; it is the songs themselves. Even after being drenched in distortion and cranked to eleven, these are delicate immaculately-written tunes. Songs that could have been played on acoustic guitars in English folk clubs in the early 1970s.

“We’re going to slow down now, catch our breath,” says Gardener. The album’s third track, In a Different Place, sounds vibrant, plaintive and melancholic. The band’s rhythm section, drummer Laurence Colbert and bassist Steve Queralt, emerge as the stars, even of quieter and more atmospheric songs such as this and the following Polar Bear. Much of the power of Ride’s music comes from its scale and the sense of space the guitars fill in their creation. That Bell is plagued with technical issues throughout the night, necessitating the frequent appearance of his guitar technician, makes the show feel a little more amateur, more youthful, and more honest. In a sign that we are not, in fact, in 1990, the tightly packed and joyous crowd turns into a forest of phones for Colbert’s anthemic introduction to the utterly mesmerising Dreams Burns Down. It is sometimes hard to equate the sounds being heard with the scant effort that lead guitarist Bell makes. A flick of the wrist over his Rickenbacker 12-string, speakers explode with euphoric glory, and it sounds as though the venue needs structural reinforcement. Apple Watches throughout the room alert their owners that the volume has exceeded 100dB and that they are now in danger of temporary hearing loss. Still, songs like Decay are the aural equivalent of a warm hug from a polar bear and surely not something that can result in harm. (Twelve hours on, my ears are still ringing). Closing track, and career highlight, Vapour Trail, is everything the superfan could hope for. So beautifully is it rendered that the string quartet responsible for its distinctive coda isn’t missed. I hug a similarly dewy-eyed stranger, and we both nod in understanding, this is as good as it gets. The band has caught us and resurrected the past in an astonishingly powerful way. As the faint smell of gangja drifts across the crowd, like the fumes from Dr Emmett Brown’s DeLorean, Ride continues the track listing of Nowhere (Expanded Edition) familiar to Spotify listeners with Taste, Unfamiliar and Nowhere, which Gardener introduces as, “our last song”. While the band’s return for the encore of Lannoy Point, Future Love and OX4, renders that statement untrue, Gardener’s claim that “Melbourne is always the best show of the Australian run,” does feel honest. The joy that infuses the colossal closing tracks Kill Switch, Leave Them All Behind and their first-ever single Chelsea Girl feels earned. By which time, fans are spent.

Live Review: Steel Panther, Airborne

Margaret Court Arena

Sometimes a music reviewer needs to set aside their critical faculties and simply relay a series of events. Tonight’s performance by the satirical American hair metal band Steel Panther is one of those times. 

 

The four-piece opened their set with Goin' in the Backdoor and Tomorrow Night and played some of their best-known songs, All I Wanna Do Is Fuck (Myself Tonight), Poontang Boomerang, as well as their new single Never Too Late (To Get Some Pussy Tonight). Much of the set was given over to comedic commentary. Examples include Satchel’s statement, “The next pandemic is gonorrhoea, and it starts with this guy right here,” while pointing at singer Michael Starr, Starr’s impersonation of Ozzy Osbourne, bumbling around the stage and needing the Heimlich manoeuvre after choking on the head of a fake bat, drummer Stix Zadinia’s hapless shrug after Satchel’s disclosure of his erectile dysfunction and bassist Spyder’s role as the butt of jokes about being new to the band. Both songs and banter were appreciated by the crowd, and it is here that I feel the need to simply disclose facts. It’s how some members of the crowd showed their appreciation that could tie a pseudo-sociologist in knots. When one member of the crowd volunteers to personify Asian Hooker, the crowd cheers as Starr goes on his knees before her to sing, “sucky fucky smells like sushi”. Later, when another woman takes a seat on stage and Spyder’s plea, “I really really really really want to see those titties” is rewarded, it’s hard not to think about agency and who has what power in this situation. But she laughs, the band do their mock “OMG Boobies!” faces like the horny teenagers these guys in their fifties most definitely are not, the crowd cheers, and she nails the hook to one of Steel Panther’s more notable odes to anal sex, Weenie Ride.

 

After a solo set from Satchel in which he links dozens of iconic metal riffs in some kind of guitar shop employee nightmare, Starr invites dozens of women to the stage. Soon, they are in various stages of undress, and band members are struggling to express just how great they think the bouncing breasts suddenly surrounding them are that it becomes something approximating a sex-positive party. When some of those women start interacting, taking the show from a M to an R rating, and Starr says, “well, this is great, but I don’t see any vaginas”, and...cue vaginas, you can only imagine how horrified the venue’s namesake, noted arch-conservative Margaret Court would be, and laugh. Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World, 17 Girls in a Row and Death to All But Metal are raucous anthems that give the band the chance to show how much musical and song writing talent lies under all the hair and makeup, but once the women leave, they really can’t be followed. They try, with an encore of Community Property and Gloryhole, but the energy levels drop and as they group together at the front of the stage, just for a moment, you can see just how much energy a show like this takes.

 

Energy levels are not a problem for the night’s opening act, local hard rock icons Airbourne. After spending most of the year overseas and with a rare opportunity to play a venue the size of their production, from the opening minutes, it was hard to think of this as anything except a headliner in full force. In front of their own massive flag, a wall of Marshall stacks, a busy light show, explosions of flames, sparks and dry ice and the songs to back all this up, this is hard rock theatre of the highest order. Singer Joel O'Keeffe has so much energy to share that to express it, he must simultaneously crowd surf while running Angus Young-style, play a guitar solo and open a can of beer by smashing it against his head. As black t-shirts and cans of Canadian Club fly through the air, it’s hard to imagine a sound bigger than O’Keeffe’s astonishing falsetto cresting over the band’s smashing cymbals and savaged guitars as they bring Breakin' Outta Hell to a deafening close. After asking the security to allow crowd surfing and tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, It’s All for Rock and Roll, O'Keeffe baptises us all in VB by throwing red cups of the stuff into the crowd, giving the extremely honed band a moment to catch their breath. The NWOBHM-heavy riffage of Runnin’ Wild sees the crowd lose it all over again, bringing the show to a shuddering, howling close. A triumph.

 

Live Review: Art of Fighting and Sally Seltmann

Melbourne Recital Centre

“This is such an aesthetically pleasing venue,” says Sally Seltmann, gazing around the honey-coloured interior of the Melbourne Recital Centre. “But it’s intimidating, and I’m such a clutz on stage,” she laughs. “But you should just be yourself, right?” 

Sally Seltmann is exactly who we want Sally Seltmann to be, and during her half-hour opening set we get an insight into her feelings; the risks that come with openness (Heart That’s Pounding), the joy of going to cafes alone (Table For One), uncertainty around devoting her life to music (Seed Of Doubt), how she wished she could write a book (Book Song) – something she later did – and heartfelt reassessments of the past (Night Bird and Please Louise), songs that wouldn’t sound out of place in either iteration of Heartbreak High.

 

Alone on stage with her Nord Electro 6 synthesiser and her phone from which she triggers sparse rhythm tracks, Seltmann somehow manages to interpret beautifully written and thoughtful songs, while at the same time being a goofball. “This is me folks!” she laughs after stopping a song for the second time because of a forgotten lyric. It feels churlish to say that these moments might be the highlights of a set that includes an overlooked masterpiece like Yes (“And I'll be in your car and driving / Straight through a red light / While you're running through my mind / Arrest me and say yes”), but they join us to her in the moment and amplify every other sentiment expressed. And when you have a personality like Seltmann’s, more is more.

 

After a brief interlude during which the venue quietly reaches capacity, Art Of Fighting arrive on stage for the hometown show of their Wires tour. The reception is warm, the acoustics perfect and as they commence playing their 2001 album, the backdrop behind them transforms into the first of a series of sketches of a cityscape, a different view of the album’s artwork. 

 

Art Of Fighting formed in the mid-1990s and released three albums and a handful of EPs before going on hiatus in 2007. In 2019, they returned with the album Luna Low, a release that seemed to fold the intervening years together. Like their previous albums, songs feature two dry Fender telecasters played by brothers Ollie and Miles Browne, Peggy Frew’s restless basslines and occasional hushed vocals and scattering flurries of Marty Brown’s drums. Spread this instrumentation across a song that sits at around 60bpm and apply the turn of the millenia tendency for a white male to sing beautifully in an alto vocal range you have the formula. That may sound reductive, but it’s what the band does with it that makes their music so compelling. Even 20 years on from Wires, the moment they begin it feels like a safe harbour.

 

Once the glacial pace of opening song Skeletons builds to Give Me Tonight and the crashing crescendo of Akula fades, Ollie fills the silence following another wave of applause and cheering. “We are Art Of Fighting,” he says bashfully. “We’re playing Wires. It’s been 20 years and that’s a long time. I was in the green room earlier and thinking, ‘Wow I can’t believe this album came out when I was five,’” he jokes, keeping his eyes on the floor in front of him. Frew’s warm smile subsides before he adds, “I’ll stick to the music.” The air thickened with dry ice and lights reaching out over the audience, played live Wires is revealed to be an almost monumental study in minimalism. With no guest vocalists, no string section arriving to leaven a chorus and only Miles’ occasional keyboard to flavour the sound, the band work together in a way that seems near telepathic. Part of the power of hearing this music in 2022 is its collaborative nature. With Covid-related restrictions pushing so many musicians to work with technology and so few bands having spent this much time playing together, the sense that this is music borne from hundreds of hours of rehearsals and recordings and concerts becomes almost tangible tonight.

 

Wires may be best known for beating albums by You Am I, Magic Dirt and Something For Kate at the 2001 ARIA Awards, in one of the most surprising upsets in their history, but these songs never feel like they are striving for anything. There is an effortlessness to every element, as if you’re being trusted with a confession. Ollie may tighten his face to sing a song like Just Say I’m Right, but it feels as though this is from inhabiting a memory, not because he is straining for a note.

 

After a standing ovation brings them back out for an encore of closing songs from other albums, Heart Translation and Luna Low, which may be the strongest song of the night, there is a sense of grace and restraint to even the loudest moments. Like there are depths yet to be plumbed. With music like this, there seems no reason Art Of Fighting can’t do this all over again in 30 years. Or sooner.

 

Live Review: Beabadoobee and Molly Payton

Forum Theatre

Outside the Forum Theatre, a queue trails down Flinders Street, onto Degraves Lane and around another block on Flinders Lane. Inside, the room fills quickly with a predominantly female-presenting, refreshingly un-Caucasian crowd with a smattering of fake freckles and a lot of cute backpacks. Entwined couples and groups of friends feed into an atmosphere that is edging on euphoric anticipation, and a sense that this is among the first concerts that many attendees have been to.

Taking advantage of the excitement, London-based Kiwi singer-songwriter Molly Payton proves a great match for the headliner. She and her band occupy the stage with a naturalness that feels emboldening. Payton has an easy demeanour and a huge sound that comprises the mass of shoegaze guitars and arena-sized drum fills yet finds space to draw things to an alt-country intimacy that feels full of confidence and intelligence when she wants to. She finishes her set with the anthemic How to Have Fun and the plaintive jangle of Honey, the opening track to Slack, her recent album that no doubt picked up some more listeners after tonight.

Thirty minutes later, and to a wave of joyous screaming, Beabadoobee arrives on stage, grabs her guitar as the band assembles behind her and launches into her pop epic Worth It. The crowd surges toward her and within seconds at least one fan is pulled over the barrier and out of the crush. “You’re ill Melbourne,” she says hoarsely, as the cymbals shimmer and the guitar fades from the song’s close. “I’m so ill. I’m ill as fuck, but I’m still going to play for you guys.” Today’s meet at greet at Sound Merch in Collingwood was accompanied by a sign that told fans the singer had a sore throat and was close to losing her voice, though tonight it doesn’t sound like it. How much is due to backing vocal tracks isn’t clear, but they’re clearly playing a big part. Regardless of whether it’s all her or she’s miming, the crowd’s devotion never wavers. Some songs (He Gets Me So High, Care, 10:36) inspire a forest of phones and hours of new material for TikTok. Others (Yoshimi Forest Magdalene, She Plays Bass) send an electric shock through the crowd who respond to their opening chords by shaking their heads, filling the room with spinning hair.

On stage, Beabadoobee spends most of the night rooted to her microphone, sometimes edging away with small kicks that – along with any movement or gesture - trigger a swell of excited screams. The eyes of guitarist Jacob Bugden stay glued on the neck of his guitar as he fills the space between his amplifiers and the phalanx of pedals at his feet. Bassist Eliana, the most focused of the quartet, smiles as she plugs away, anchoring the song with her warmth while drummer Luca Caruso does a sterling job in taking the songs away from their backing tracks and making them feel live, loud and immediate.

“This is my favourite track from the record,” Beabadoobee says, her voice notably thinner as she introduces the recent single See You Soon. By the time it reaches the ears of the crowd, even a slower, gentler song like this is turned into a banger with hundreds of arms sent aloft amid a rowdy singalong. Talk, with its chorus of “we go out on a Tuesday” brings even more energy from the crowd and thoughts how many of these songs would be perfect on the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You, the answer, almost all of them.

Even with her voice audibly weakening as the show progresses, it’s clear that she really wants everyone to have a good night. When we call her back for an encore, Beabadoobee returns with just an acoustic guitar and a plea. “You’ve got to sing this song with me OK,” she asks. “You know it, it’s called Coffee.” But, with so many people focused on filming, few people beyond the first few rows join in on the song that made her famous. Regardless, the concert closes on the high-energy high of Cologne, one of her earliest and strongest songs. As Bugden goes all Sonic Youth on his Fender Stratocaster and Caruso pulls out some fierce double-kick and cymbal smashes, the sense of euphoria never drops. These songs are so strong and the connections they’ve made have brought so many people together that, even through illness, this is a triumphant show. It makes you wonder what she could do at full strength.

Live Review: The Smyths, Fleeting Persuasion

Max Watts

On their website, The Smyths explain that they are not a Smiths tribute band. Rather than don ornamental hearing aids and paisley shirts while flinging gladioli in mimicry, The Smyths are focused on evoking the atmosphere of a Smiths gig in the 1980s. Having played over 760 shows in nearly 20 years, it’s entirely possible that tonight’s sold-out crowd will witness the closest thing possible to a concert by the most influential British band of the last 40 years. 

First up however is Fleeting Persuasion who deliver moody, polished mid-tempo guitar pop reminiscent of the music scene that birthed tonight’s headliners. Fronted by Melbourne singer-songwriter J M S Harrison, the band seem more interested in riff and vibe than hooks with songs spiralling out over mesmeric rhythms. It’s a confident move for a band not used to playing in venues this size – to intrigue and lure rather than fight for attention – and it’s one that largely pays off. When they close their set with forthcoming single Etched, the only shame is that the whole gig couldn’t have been accompanied by a low-fi, slow motion early 90s music video, perhaps one caught on Rage at 2am.

Blasting into their set with Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, to wild screams of abandon from the crowd, arms, beers and phones aloft, singer Graham Sampson, dressed in black suit and with his spotted shirt unbuttoned to a few inches north of his navel, implores us, as he will do many times this evening, that he loves us dearly. “We got here as quick as the world would allow us,” he says, grasping at his heart before extending his hand toward us. What becomes immediately apparent, even more than the astonishing musicality of the band, is the way that music production has changed since The Smiths left a recording studio for the last time. The fidelity of the music that inspires us all to be here is exceeded in a way that lends the instruments a sense of size that seems appropriate, because it’s Max Watts in 2022, but is also definitely not the sound of an indie band in the 1980s.

William, It Was Really Nothing, Hand in Glove and Panic follow, each sounding louder, faster and more muscular than their original versions and each drawing a wildly impassioned response from the crowd. Guitarist Andy Munro does an astonishing interpretation of Johnny Marr’s guitar playing, managing to make the listener forget that there are at least a dozen other guitar parts (and often strings and synthesisers) augmenting his trickling melodies and slashing chords. Similarly, bassist Simon Hudson reminds you just how remarkable a player The Smiths’ Andy Rourke was. After an imaginative reinvention of There is a Light That Never Goes Out, the band break for an interval, “because we are old men,” Sampson jokes. The happily burbling crowd surge toward the bar, some guessing which songs we’re yet to hear, all seeming very glad they came. 

Returning with The Queen is Dead, The Smyths’ seem refreshed, and Sampson’s voice is in fine form, eager to show us that his falsetto is indeed (quite possibly like yours) stronger than Morrissey’s. The joy of hearing someone even attempt to play these songs, let alone to do so with such skill and attention to detail, is a thrill for anyone with even a passing interest in The Smiths. While Reel Around the Fountain and Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me are shorn of their subtleties by the band’s faster and harder approach, songs that can barely contain their own defiant wilfulness such as These Things Take Time, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side and This Charming Man, are triumphs. Sampson’s vigorous thesping suits the songs perfectly, and it never feels as though he is simply trying to be Morrissey, a prospect that has become increasingly fraught over the last decade. Pacing the stage, dropping to his knees, offering his microphone to the crowd to sing choruses and some of Morrissey’s choicest lines, there is so much love in the room that it feels there is no room for doubt.

“You can tell it’s a good gig because my whiff is destroyed,” Sampson tells the crowd. “I’ve been made over,” he smiles. Departing the stage to a blistering Bigmouth Strike Again and returning for an encore of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want and How Soon is Now that, tribute band or not, provoked so much inarguable joy from the crowd The Smyths could only regard the night as a triumph.

Live Review: Martha Marlow, Luke Howard

Melbourne Recital Centre

Walking into the timber interior of the Melbourne Recital Centre, it’s immediately apparent that Martha Marlow boasts a wider demographic fanbase than any other 2021 Australian Music Prize nominee. The Sydney-based singer-songwriter’s album Medicine Man, most of which she plays this evening, is a curiously timeless release, and its lush evocation of seventies-era orchestral folk-pop has found appreciative listeners among entwined young couples and, it would seem, people who bought orchestral folk pop records in the 1970s.

Tonight’s opening act, a man in his early 40s, walks on stage, picks up a microphone and immediately begins talking about the influence of Camus on his next album, All Of Us. “This first song is called A Collective Destiny,” he says, placing the microphone carefully on the top of a Steinway grand piano and taking a seat before it. Speaking on behalf of an audience largely unaware that there would be any support act, a woman shouts, “who are you?” It turns out the man about to bedazzle us with minimalist classical piano for the next thirty minutes, is Luke Howard. Rocking slowly back and forth on the edge of a piano stool, Howard peels out arpeggios and rolling chords in a way that evokes movement in nature, a subtly shifting view from a window and other imagery that likely varies between listeners. It’s beguiling stuff that is already leavening Spotify playlists with names like ‘Rainy Afternoon’ and ‘Chill Piano’ and should rightfully be all over a very successful film soundtrack sometime soon.

Keeping the idea of refinement and precision foremost in the mind of the audience, Marlow’s 17-piece orchestra took their places, then her band, all of whom appeared on her album. The next person to grace the stage is iconic composer and conductor Nigel Westlake. Bowing and accepting the applause appropriate for the man who scored the film Babe, Westlake then welcomes Martha Marlow, who is being led by her father, the double bassist and arranger Jonathan Zwartz, to its centre. Resplendent in a white silk dress, she sits on a stool, keeping one foot on the floor, and puts on glasses on to read lyrics from a music stand.

“I’d like to begin the show with the first song from my album Medicine Man,” Marlow intones evenly in a voice that is part ASMR hypnotist, part shipping news broadcaster. Most songs are introduced with a reading of a specific poem that influenced or inspired it. The first, All My Days, is preceded by a reading of Mary Oliver’s I Go Down to the Shore and further contextualised by Marlow sharing a story about walking to the beach near her house and how the soul-stirring sight of apricot sunsets over rolling waves inspired the song. Many of these poetry readings meet with equally earnest murmurs of appreciation in the audience and it is quietly astonishing, in 2022, to see a performer so earnestly in love with beauty and so passionate about sharing it without a shred of naivety or irony. And then comes the music.

Perhaps it is due to recent years spent listening to digital reconstructions of acoustic or electronic recordings, but the impact of hearing an orchestra and a band performing is almost shocking. With so much attention paid to the writing, arrangement, performance and the live sound, other music seems temporarily weaker. The sincerity with which Marlow writes and sings is similarly remarkable. 

“I called the album Medicine Man because I haven’t been very well, I’m not very well,” she explains by way of introducing the title track, a highlight of the show. “This album is very much an insight into my inner world I take refuge in.” Marlow suffers from an autoimmune disorder that fluctuates in its expression. Tonight it means she is unable to play guitar, but her condition never seems to be a source of weakness. Instead, it seems to charge each action with intent and purpose. 

Moving through the album, songs are rendered with a rich fidelity to their recording. Violins shimmer in unison, guitars blend together with a fulsome warmth that anchors her voice in their midst. Unaffected, breathy and floating, plain and striking, it’s a sound that is all the more powerful for not being showy, sinking into the arrangements as another instrument. Songs such as Rain Man (introduced with a reading of TS Eliot’s Rhapsody on a Windy Night) and River Runs Red (inspired by Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart) are rife with imagery and sentiments that speak to nurture and support rather than assertions or declarations. They don’t need copious vibrato or to be separated from the song either in the writing, recording or performance to find their strength. It’s a privilege to be able to see them in a venue that allows their detail to be writ large. Closing with the closest thing she has to an upbeat radio hit I Don’t Want to Grow Up, the revelatory Now I Have You, and What All the Fuss is About, a song from a forthcoming “novel in song” called Notes From Malcolm Harvey, Marlow seems gloriously at home. Though the latter has a chorus against which the estate of Nick Drake could mount a strong case for plagiarism, the sheer grandeur of her vision, and its realisation, is intoxicating. Marlow leaves the stage to applause, and returns when the song has finished to a standing ovation. To have created a show like this from a debut album suggests there will be many more to come.