Live Review: Kate Miller-Heidke, Sweet Jean

Inspired by old Americana folk and topics of murder and mayhem, Sweet Jean conjure a reflective mood as the seated audience take in the banjo- and autoharp-accompanied harmonies. Their wonderfully dark folk songs are balanced by the duo's light performance style and self-aware black comedy. Maureen is described as an “accidental love-rage murder ballad... as you can tell, we've been hired to start the party”, and mentioning that Parachutes was (seemingly un-ironically) picked up by an airline to be played as in-flight entertainment. They play many of the ballads from their album, content to let their voices and instruments drift across the room without any urgency. They cover Appalachian banjo player Dock Boggs' Country Blues (complete with interesting trivia regarding his career), and finish with Shiver And Shake, with lyrics based on a Grimm's fairy tale.

A background in opera is going to pave the way for theatricality and Kate Miller-Heidke excels at combining the beauty and delicacy of her voice with the absurd. Her set sees several dresses with lights in them hanging from the ceiling, changing light and mood with each song. The band is minimal, with violin/keys/guitar wonder John Rogers and her partner and long-time collaborator Keir Nuttall swapping roles, letting the songs breathe. There are the ballads (Rock This Baby To Sleep, Sing To Me, Caught In The Crowd, Share Your Air – featuring the lead singer from buzz band The Creases) and the funny zeitgeist-y humour, both in her stories and her lyrics, that echo Flight Of The Conchords (Lose My Shit, Words, Can't Shake It). Her tales involve: being stuck in a bathroom at a launch she was supposed to sing title track, O Vertigo! at because she was pushing a pull door; a young boy who wrote a letter chastising her for rhyming 'school' with 'school' in Caught In The Crowd; and a fan who thought the lyrics were 'I want chicken' and not “I can't shake it”.

Nuttall is the sleeper star, taking an extended solo in Words that shows off his wonderful dexterity on the guitar with such musicality and versatility, but sharing that sense of humour. His Franky Walnut comedy alter-ego performed some side-splitting 'love songs', and final song Humiliation shows that a loop pedal in the right hands can be effortless magic.

Kate Miller-Heidke has a knack for cultivating a devoted following, including one audience member who is now on the guestlist for life through the album's crowd-funding rewards and who drove from Sydney to be here, so there is the inevitable encore. The night's variety show feel is capped off with a flamenco rendition of Beyonce's Run The World (Girls), and finally, Last Day On Earth.