Live Review: Marlon Williams & The Yarra Benders, Laura Jean

4 July 2015 | 12:16 pm | Annelise Ball

So endearing. So fun. So exceptionally talented

The wintery mellow vibe at the Corner Hotel is duly noted by Laura Jean, who comments on the feel while holding a hot cup of tea.

She finger picks her way through When I First Brought Him Home, flanked by Evelyn Morris on keys and Biddy Connor on viola, who both provide beautiful three-part harmonies throughout the set. Laura Jean pulls out a small electronic harp, and tells a yarn of her recent trip to New Zealand, where every single elderly person in the country demanded to know what the hell the instrument was. She doesn’t say, but strums it throughout Don’t Marry The One You Love to brilliant effect. A Mirror On The Earth sees drummer Dave Williams, a man with the most glorious mutton chop sideburns, shaking a belly-dancing belt for extra percussion. This track is a total highlight; the instrumentation, harmonies and deeply personal lyrics combine to create something utterly moving in its scope. Even Marlon Williams himself later proclaimed Laura Jean to be his favourite Australian songwriter, clearly for damn good reason.

Said Marlon Williams begins alone with Simon & Garfunkel’s For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her. The gifted voice, the folky beauty, the charismatic cheekinees; Williams packages up all his incredible gifts and gives them out during this very first magical song. Inviting GF Aldous Harding on stage to join him on Lonely Side Of Her, the lovers harmonise together in cute celebration of their one-year anniversary. Shit gets hardcore bluegrass next when The Yarra Benders come out to bang away on double basses and mandolins on The Stanley Brothers If That’s The Way You Feel. Piercing, weeping violin strums next makes Strange Things appropriately creeped-up, while Heaven For You, Prison For Me gets everyone lamenting the curse of crap relationships throughout this luscious crooner. Insanely frenetic strumming, fiddling and drumming follow next on Hello Miss Lonesome, with Williams flinging off his too-tight jacket and flicking back his hair in sweaty glee during the final exhausting moments. “Danger time for everybody” is announced when Williams pulls out the electric guitar for After All, but no dramas, he does the job. Laura Jean comes out to share the love on the brilliant Dark Child, a killer track thrilling the punters, especially one satisfied woman who loudly proclaims it to be a “musigasm”. So endearing, so fun, so exceptionally talented; Marlon Williams clearly is the absolute shit.