Live Review: Lisa Mitchell

Silver streamers laced the entrance, aluminum foil hugged the stage pillars, fairy lights decorated the roof and silver paper cutout stars delicately hung from the ceiling for the intimate and sold out performance by Australian indie princess Lisa Mitchell.

The 25-year-old singer-songwriter hopped on stage, smiling brightly with a gentle childlike youth and the cheekbones of a Grecian goddess. “Welcome to our cosmic land” she says before performing Alice In Wonderland. “I must’ve been about 15 when I wrote that,” she confesses with a soft giggle. The audience members looked on in awe and everyone in the crowd was instantly captivated by her natural beauty and quirky yet humble persona.

Lisa Mitchell is on stage wearing a black sequined jersey jacket with “Mitchell” sewn on in sparkles across the back, over a black band t-shirt and a sequined mini skirt. She makes a couple of attempts to loosen the crowd and mentions that a close friend has made her jacket. Some smiled and laughed at her jokes but the majority of the audience stand still, entranced by her uniquely breathy folk voice and the dreamlike winter wonderland that’s been created especially for the show. She sang Coin Laundry about halfway through her set, showcasing her refreshingly pure and wholesome voice. This girl has come a long way since her Australian Idol days.

With her pixie-like innocence, Mitchell served up a superb edition of the track Pirouette, which remained a highlight of the night. She got the crowd involved chanting “Won’t forget you, won’t forget you” during Spiritus, before announcing vocalists, East, Montaigne, Jordan Wilson, Tim Harvey and Andy Bull, to join her on stage for an adorable, memorable a cappella version of Wah Ha. She isn’t shy and quickly develops a natural connection to the crowd, “It’s so fun to sing with you all! Let’s keep singing, it’s my favourite!” she says before clapping her hands and introducing the next song as one inspired by Andy Warhol and hinting to the bar to send over their “Warhol cocktail” to the stage (which they do).

For her last song she paused for a few minutes to tune her guitar (the crowd didn’t seem to mind, most just found it endearing) and sung a cover with Jordan, while he reminded us all why we showed up tonight, stating [Mitchell] “is the queen of awkward and that’s why I love her”.