Live Review: Julia Stone - Cell Block Theatre

There's something particularly emotional about listening to love songs in a former women's prison. The huge sandstone walls have likely heard the odd story or two in their day – but were they offered as sweetly as tonight?


Beginning was Oliver Tank, a 21st century one-man band who played guitar and decks together in a plugged-in folk mish mash. He sweetly opened by asking, “Can you teach me how to dance real slow?” and, while the guitar could have done with a little tune (or perhaps it was shivering not just with the sandstone-y beauty, but the sandstone-y cold of the place?), his James Taylor-with-a-vocoder thing shouldn't have worked, but it really did.


Julia Stone took the stage a little over half an hour later, complete with remarkably sounding (and looking) band. Under the fairy lights and illuminated stars that adorned the cell block, she sang the first few songs almost without acknowledgement.

“It takes me a few songs just to be able to breathe and say hi,” she finally admitted, bubbling. Indeed, tonight showed the stark and somewhat surprising contrast between Stone the whispy musician (lovely as she is) and Stone the woman as she walks in the world. The woman told stories that gushed with energy and lacked focus (merely because she was excited, not because there was no focus to be had). However, the musician was highly disciplined when she played, walking up to the mic as if she were a diver on a board, approaching carefully and dedicated clearly to the cause so as to ensure the most precise landing. And there's no doubting that it works.


As Stone's new album By The Horns was showcased tonight, there were few left doubting her growing grasp as a songwriter – carving out not just the folkie/love-y thing of old, but making a name for herself. The title track is a particular testament, a good one gone bad with just the right amount of anger, while I'm Here, I'm Not Here was a triumph of understatement, and The Line That Ties Me won live, as it does on the record, for Best Soppy Lyrics Of 2012 ("You're the line that ties me to things I don't understand.”) Add a couple of wonderfully daggy covers for good measure (Fleetwood Mac and Olivia Newton John) and the cold was duly conquered.