Live Review: Sarah Blasko

It really is a nice idea to house intimate musical performances within the ambient, often ethereal church setting. The architectural grandeur, the distinctive acoustics, the subconscious reverence instilled within the audience from the moment they enter, all combine into quite a unique concert experience.

Unfortunately there are certain logistical problems associated with church or cathedral performances, one of which reared its head last night at Sarah Blasko's St Stephen's show. Churches! You need to get into gear and install air con. A couple of small fans placed sporadically throughout the venue doesn't cut it when you have the place packed to capacity in summer. It's really hard to get into a performance when you can feel the sweat dripping off the guy next to you. 

Blasko opened the night with All Coming Back, a cracking track from her debut album, before moving into the beautifully melancholy, piano-driven Explain, which made great use of both the performance space and the church piano. Off to a great start, but it was a little disappointing they were the only remnants of Blasko's first two albums until encore track Showstopper. It would have been lovely to have some other older songs thrown into the mix.

Moving through her other two albums with relative ease, Blasko performed a very enjoyable set that exhibited her unique vocals. The tail end of All I Want saw Blasko utilise the church acoustics, while the charmingly delicate ukulele rendition of Here really took advantage of the quiet audience.

On a whole though Blasko's performance wasn't as enhanced by the sacred setting as much as it could have been. That's not any slight on Blasko, who is a great performer with a beautiful voice. Rather the wispy nature of Blasko's vocals at times didn't match up to the church acoustics, and so it was rather on par to seeing Blasko perform at any number of other venues in Sydney, rather than the divine experience the promoters were going for.