Live Review: Seja, Elana Stone, The Wednesday Night

The Wednesday Night's dual frontwoman attack at the front and centre of stage sharing vocal, percussion and keyboard duties were flanked by guitarists all around to fill out the sound, which crept from slinky Velvet Underground & Nico classiness to Phil Spector-inspired wall of sound girl group jams in a natural and effortless flow.

Their dual tambourine outro was then matched by a solo tambourine intro from Elana Stone for her set, which was compelling from the opening moments. Marrying her very adept vocal style and effects with a dizzying array of very cool sounding electronic accompaniment, she also heralded what would become a nice theme of guest performers and instrument switch-ups for the rest of the night when joined by first one then both members of Hello Vera. Her comparisons to Kate Bush were validated with a cover of Army Dreamers, for which Elana played the piano accordion for not the first time of the evening.

Seja's new album, All Our Wires, also signals a completely new all-male band for her live show. The set largely featured material from this new record, and even though it features mostly performances by Seja and her brother Mirko (the record's producer), the new band owned it like it was theirs to begin with. Despite the band's innate blokey-ness (beards donned Arun and Tass the guitarists, while drummer Adam is infamous for hitting the skins of Brisbane punk legends Dick Nasty) everyone played true to the source material. There was certainly a tougher edge to the overall sound of the band, but it played to the strength of Seja's songs and personality – even the (surely) seven foot tall guitarist could not overshadow her style. Seja is a synthesiser expert and enthusiast but when she dropped back to just an acoustic guitar it became clear that even her most complicated and authentic synth flourishes augment her classic pop songs – they do not define them. Finishing the set with Seja once again on guitar the band disembarked leaving her and her back-up singers Elana, Hannah and Georgia to finish with an acoustic cover of Justin Bieber's Eenie Meenie, which was way better than it ever should be.