Live Review: Kate Miller-Heidke

10 January 2015 | 2:11 pm | Ching Pei Khoo

Kate Miller-Heidke left Melbourne with softly burning hearts.

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It’s standing room only – and not just amongst the army of animated mannequins in the galleries adorned in Jean Paul Gaultier’s gob-smacking creations.  Long queues lining the stretch of the NGV along St Kilda Road hoping to score last minute tickets were turned away at the waterwall hours before Kate Miller-Heidke even appeared onstage in The Great Hall. 

Supporting act DJ Hysteric spins a well calculated tempo to accompany large video projections of Gaultier’s creations flashing above him, the energy and excitement of his fashion shows syncing beautifully with the music.

Miller-Heidke (vocals, keyboard, tambourine) and husband Keir Nuttall (guitar, backing vocals) kick off a robust, tight performance as soon as they take to the small stage, opening with two tracks from their latest album O Vertigo – Yours Was The Body and the sweetly lyrical Lose My Shit.  This is the signal that unassuming parents with attending minors should be warned that Miller-Heidke and Nuttall take no prisoners with their songwriting.  With her classically honed vocals and famed ability to reach the high octaves, she makes the profanities in her lyrics sound like sugarcoated lullabies.  As it is, there is no warning at the door but no one is seen clapping ears around sensitive ears.

The wall behind the duo is awash in projected street art courtesy of Rone, the royal blue and black stripes reminiscent of Gaultier’s palette.  Miller-Heidke is dressed like one of the madonnas from Gaultier’s ‘Virgins’ collection, sporting a round woven leather headpiece and a black lace dress.  Flamboyant guest vocalist Brendan Maclean similarly observes the dress code, appearing onstage in a one armed, diaphanous black top as he and Miller-Heidke croon Share Your Air.

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Miller-Heidke’s piercing, pure vocals are given the perfect setting to soar, and soar she does.  Her sustained lyrics to the ending of O Vertigo silence the hall and draw a torrent of applause afterwards.  Not to be outdone, Nuttall displays technical virtuosity with his knee-buckling guitar rifts, emulating the dizzying sensation of rocketing up at feverish speed, then plummeting down in an instant. Regular backing vocalist Madeleine Paige complements Miller-Heidke well by providing grounding body and dimension in many of the songs, especially in the eerie Sarah and heartbreaking What Was I To You.

Fresh off the Woodford Folk Festival and a pre-Christmas tour in Europe, Miller-Heidke shows no sign of jet-lag. She and Nuttall move smoothly through their setlist, alternating effortlessly between acoustic pop, light rock, alternative tracks.  They even add a bitingly sarcastic Christmas number they had penned towards the conclusion.  “I spent Christmas with my Nana, helping her with her Facebook page, deleting friends who are too old,” she quips.  Like God’s Gift To Women, it contains plenty of dark humour that elicits roars of laughter from the audience.  A perfect aperitif to Gaultier’s exhibition, Miller-Heidke’s performance ends too soon but as we walk out into the storm soaked streets with softly burning hearts.