LIVE REVIEWS

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    George Ezra (Hordern Pavilion)

    First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, February 2019

    It’s said Nashville country musician Chet Atkins once declared: “Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it.” It certainly applies to the self-proclaimed “pop and roll” of young UK singer George Ezra, whose debut record, Wanted on Voyage, went big in 2014. As did 2018’s earworm single, Shotgun, which he popped over to play at last year’s ARIA awards. Shotgun ...

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    Unsound Festival, Adelaide, 2018

    First published in The Wire Magazine, March 2019

    Six editions in and Adelaide still can’t believe its luck that Unsound Festival landed here. When it began in 2014 as the strange and spiky rock embedded in the state-funded monolith of Adelaide Festival, it made some sense. Then a troubling hiatus when many thought it may resurface in Melbourne or Sydney. But in 2017 it was back – in Adelaide. 2018’s festival is a ...

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    Mona Foma review – heady mix of nudity, art and music lands in Launceston

    First published in The Guardian Australia, January 2019

    You’ve got two kinds of Australian festivals, roughly speaking: camping festivals that take place among nature, and those that infiltrate a city or town. Gigs in the bush just make me anxious for the animals. I prefer the town takeovers. One of the best things about the two festivals run by Tasmania’s Mona – Dark Mofo (winter, Hobart) and Mona Foma (summer, Launceston) – is ...

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    ‘I might get my boobs out’: aboard Air Mofo’s bonkers flight to Launceston

    First published in The Guardian Australia, January 2019

    “How was your flight?” will have a new reply in future from the 150 passengers on board Air Mofo’s maiden trip on Friday. “Fine,” they’ll say. “But did I ever tell you about that bonkers flight I took to Tasmania?” When I pass them at Melbourne airport, I assume the young women in matching yellow tees are a boisterous sporting team. Then I see the ...

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    Nick Cave: ‘These conversation events have brought back the terror’

    First published in The Guardian Australia, January 2019

    “You’re part of an experiment in connection,” Nick Cave says from the stage. His In Conversation show, currently touring Australia, centres on questions and song requests but, like Cave’s new Red Hand Files website, “there will be no moderator”. So first he must briefly mire himself in rock’n’roll’s nemesis: a bit of housekeeping. The rules of play. While Cave is dressed impeccably at the Sydney ...

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    Gang Of Youths (The Enmore)

    First published in The Guardian Australia, November 2018

    On Sunday, Gang of Youths’ frontman David Le’aupepe checked out of social media “for a bit” – though not for the first time. On Wednesday, the first concert of the band’s heroic six-night run in their hometown of Sydney was cancelled due to “our David’s” chest infection. The band had played eight sold-out gigs at the Forum in Melbourne already, not to mention other cities. Running yourselves ...

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    New War (Marrickville Bowling Club)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, November 2018

    Melbourne band New War are in Sydney to launch their new album, Coin, at a venue dear to Inner West music fans. The bowlo’s boss, however, has insisted the lights adjoining the dance floor remain on. She’s gone home but something, something, “trip hazard”, something, something, “out of our hands”, say staff. The safety-first lighting lends New War’s set a kick-against-the-pricks feel. Prosaic forces are pressing ...

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    Skepta (Sydney Opera House)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, September 2018

    In 2016, grime artist Skepta knocked a guy’s teeth out in a Melbourne club. Later that year he won prestigious British music award the Mercury Prize for his album Konnichiwa, which featured a song about the altercation called Crime Riddim. Skepta’s criminal record saw his visa denied in April. It was cleared two weeks ago, allowing him to play a Sydney Opera House show during ...

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    Laura Jean (Oxford Art Factory)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 2018

    On Saturday morning folk-pop musician Laura Jean is on TV hosting Rage. “Remember your tribe is out there,” she says, closing the show. “Waiting to embrace you.” Jean’s own tribe surrounds her later as she launches her new album, Devotion. Her mum and dad are there, her sister Erica doubles as dancer and back-up singer, and after a few doses of Jean’s cheeky-bastard banter, the stiff room ...

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    Ben Howard (Sydney Opera House)

    First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, July 2018

    In 2011 and 2014, when UK singer-songwriter Ben Howard’s first two albums came out, hunger still rumbled for the guitar-lead musings of sensitive white men born with forlorn yet ultimately rousing voices. Since then our cultural frame has shifted, and broadened, but fortunately for Howard, so has his. While his new album Noonday Dream may estrange him from the folk-balladeer tastes that originally nourished him, ...