Live Review: Dan Sultan

MTV's noble Unplugged experiment brought out the best and the worst.

For every Nirvana, there was a Korn (involuntary shudder). For every Eric Clapton, there was a Queensryche. Obviously, the style of music had a lot to do with it. Korn's ADIDAS didn't fare very well (at all), for example, whereas the Unplugged version of Clapton's Layla was an all-timer. It turns out Dan Sultan's material works gangbusters when you take away all the pomp and bluster of pop music production, and an intimate venue like Sydney Opera House's Studio gets rid of the safety net.

Most of Sultan's set was drawn from Killer, a record steeped in American gospel populated by distinctly Australian characters, which is so faithful to its influence that it drifts into cliche, occasionally leaving behind Sultan's own persona to latch onto an aesthetic lifted directly from the American South. Get rid of all the harmonies and the hand raising and it becomes an effective confessional. Songs like set-opener Cul-De-Sac were stripped back to the bone to reveal an honest approximation of nostalgia and loss, and Reaction (written with Meg Mac) mercifully managed to lose the vapid pop inflections to show off a surprising amount of genuine swagger. That said, Drover (a song Sultan wrote with Gang Of Youths' Dave Le'aupepe) never rose above its derivative gospel affectations.

Sultan's piano work was impressive (Nyul Nyul Girl was beautiful), but it couldn't hold a candle to his Gibson. There was a three-song medley of Under Your Skin, The Same Man and Rattlesnake that transformed him into someone else. As he sweated it out under his fedora, Sultan dove headlong into a fugue state. He tapped into something essential and elemental. It wasn't sustainable, but it was great to witness. What really sets Sultan in stone as a true pop star is his voice and to get to hear it without a mass of production behind him was excellent. It has a wonderful graininess to it and it felt completely authentic and natural.

Sultan completes his two-show run tonight at the Studio.