LIVE REVIEWS

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Isol-Aid festival (Instagram)
First published in Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, March 2020
“Charge your devices,” says Isol-Aid co-organiser Emily Ulman. “You’re not going anywhere today.” It’s Sunday morning and day four (if you did last weekend’s marathon too) of the live-streamed Instagram festival that’s raising funds for music industry crisis relief organisation, Support Act, via a line-up including Middle Kids, Courtney Barnett, Sarah Blasko and Camp Cope. “Did I leave my keys here last night?” writes a punter ...
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Cold Chisel (Parramatta Stadium)
First published in Sydney Morning Herald, January 2020
In January 2020, no sane marketing person would promote Cold Chisel’s “first ever” outdoor summer tour as they did last October when tickets went on sale: “There’s nothing more Australian than hot sun, warm waves and Cold Chisel.” Yet seeing “Chisel” is a chance to heal too. We may be distressed by the ravages wrought on the bush, the beach, the fresh air and the ...
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Paul Kelly (The Domain)
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, December 2019
Rebooted for a third year, Paul Kelly’s open-air tour Making Gravy is growing as iconic as the man himself. It’s even accruing marketing cliches like “unmissable live music experience”. For many, it is unmissable. It’s a greatest hits show, after all, studded with the integrity of classy deep cuts and the sparkle of several newer songs. Of course Kelly plays Before Too Long, Careless, To Her Door and Dumb Things. And of ...
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Dyson Stringer Cloher (Lansdowne Hotel)
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, November 2019
The rush of emotion takes you by surprise before even a note has been played. It’s just Mia Dyson, Liz Stringer and Jen Cloher walking onstage in matching green, red and blue suits to launch their first album as supergroup Dyson Stringer Cloher; slinging each other “let’s do this” smiles. They each strap on a guitar and swivel to face the room square on in ...
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Dope Lemon (Enmore Theatre)
First published in Sydney Morning Herald, August 2019
If the first Dope Lemon (Angus Stone) record didn’t lure you back to the “listen in full” album experience, then the freshly released Smooth Big Cat will. Stone’s pysch-soaked prowl is best smoked in one toke. Its mastery is its mood – it’d be sex, drugs and rock’n’roll if it weren’t so weary – and how it makes you feel both light and heavy-headed at ...
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Paul Kelly: Thirteen Ways To Look At Birds (City Recital Hall)
First published in Sydney Morning Herald, June 2019
For two years, Paul Kelly’s partner sent him poems about birds. Tonight’s co-composer, James Ledger, presumably found a few too, as did Anna Goldsworthy, pianist with Seraphim trio and the one who suggested this collaboration. Such poems are not hard to find. “Birds have fascinated poets for centuries,” Kelly writes in the program. “And what better way to honour them than by sending songs out ...
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The Dirty Three (Opera House)
First published in The Guardian Australia, May 2019
“Unique” is a word that’s flung around a lot. Yet most acts it’s slapped on, such as the Cure, left legions of imitators in their wake. The word wore off. Two Australian instrumental trios remain worthy of the superlative. We suspected they were pretty astonishing from the start but we were marvelling, then, from the thickets of youth. Time did the great reveal. In 2019, ...
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The Cure (Opera House)
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, May 2019
Provided all parts were oiled and in working order, how could this gig flop? We already knew The Cure were still a great live act. And the Opera House wasn’t going to drop the ball, given the scale of the pop culture coup in scooping other major cities to host the band’s five 30th anniversary gigs for seminal 1989 album, Disintegration. We knew the crowd would ...
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Kacey Musgraves (Enmore Theatre)
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, May 2019
Who here,” asks Texan country pop star Kacey Musgraves, “has legit seen a huntsman spider?” Every hand in the sold-out theatre shoots up. “In your room?” Musgraves replies to a fan. “And you’re still here? I would’ve legit burned that house down.” Legit, she probably would’ve. Musgraves is many things but most of all she’s a woman who seems to do exactly what she sets out ...
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Odette (Metro Theatre)
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, April 2019
Last Odette got engaged to a fan. Last night Odette totally killed it. Last night the crowd screamed and sung and whistled for her every note, shimmy and word, even when she bemoaned Sydney’s lockout laws. Last night Odette also played a few songs too long. But first, to the victories. Her debut album of powerfully sung pop ballads, To A Stranger, reached No. 13 on ...