Live Review: Xavier Rudd, Donavon Frankenreiter, Nahko & Medicine For The People

Having toured the US together, tonight's lineup is made solid through the surfing friendships of four-piece Nahko & Medicine For The People and Donavon Frankenreiter, the later charming the absolute pants off a near-packed house. With his wild, unkempt hair poking out from under his trademark hat and a guitarist buddy by his side, Frankenreiter has worked enough rooms in his time to know that performance gold lies in audience participation; calling for requests, he asks a young girl to join him for a shared rendition of Life, Love & Laughter. There's such joy found on the faces of the enthralled audience that he does it again for It Don't Matter, shushing the audience so the token woo girls on the balcony can have a moment of glory as he tells them: “You've got a lot of fuckin' spring in you!” Frankenreiter is acoustic charisma personified, and that voice – it shines gloriously as though laden with effects.

Though taking to the stage in simple duo mode with exceptionally talented Gold Coast percussionist and backing vocalist Bobby Alu, Xavier Rudd makes the most of the expansive stage with a backdrop highlighting the imagery that shapes his music; from land and environmental protests, Aboriginal people, and animals – of the cute and cuddly variety and of the abhorrent destruction particularly within our oceans – Rudd, as usual,  is making a point this evening. With the sound of cockatoos flying over, he opens with the comforting sound of his Weissenborn slide across the stomping Bow, a tale of remembering Mother Earth among our busy lives. The simple, sweet folk of Messages is given a lengthy workover by way of an acapella midsection; two songs in and only 20 minutes have passed. Rudd is always impressive live – he reinterprets continually, anchoring his yidaki, percussion, vocal and guitar experimentations with melodic highlights and singalong moments of his works, sneaking in blues, rock, reggae and folk sensibilities sometimes within one song. As the stage lighting and background imagery changes to an intense flicker of geometric shapes worthy of a deadmau5 show, Rudd moves to his unique set-up of two yidakis of different tones, drums, chimes and vocal to totally change gear and blow audience minds for a lengthy, earthy interpretation of last year's Lioness Eye. A similar dynamic is achieved near the end of his two-hour set in the primal offering of Culture Bleeding, linking even the joyful folk of Follow The Sun, the poignant word changes of Ain't No Sunshine and the Aboriginal dance celebration of Let Me Be together as one cohesive, challenging and hugely powerful set.