Live Review: Vance Joy, Gossling

Stepping out onto the stage on a cold, rainy night, Melbourne's Gossling warmed the crowd up with her sweet, folky-pop tunes and unmistakeable cutesy vocals. The title track from her debut album Harvest Of Gold translated really well live, with a sort of deep, post-rock feel to it, and she took it down a notch for slower tune A Lover's Spat. Her cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game saw her own, folky twist on the classic actually work really well, and she finished on her brilliantly catchy earworm Wild Love. Unfortunately her sweet, cutesy, Julia Stone-esque voice was her downfall in this venue, as the hardly-listening crowd drowned her out terribly and every story told between songs was lost in the din.

Fellow Melbourne-based artist Vance Joy carries high expectations on his shoulders after taking out the top spot in triple j's Hottest 100 this year. Sadly though, he didn't live up to them, as his set (struggling to even fill an hour) saw a few members of the crowd leaving from about halfway through. First single, Playing With Fire started off much lower than on the recording, and with a voice that suits the higher ranges he didn't manage to pull it off. Oddly, though, he brought it up to his regular comfort zone after the first verse, which begs the question why he chose to move it down in the first place.

Admittedly his vocals saw a few great parts splinted between too much vibrato and a shaky tone, and he shared some funny anecdotes with the audience that warmed a few punters up to him. His new song Red Eye was catchy and saw a bit more control over his voice, and his cover of The Master's Apprentice's Because I Love You was well sung and had a few people joining in, but as the set wore on his songs all seemed a bit same-same with little variation. Leaving his triple j hit Riptide right until the end was wise, as it seemed as though this was what everyone was waiting for, with what could only be described as a mass exodus as soon as the song ended. Nowadays with encores pretty much a given in any set, it was odd to see a gig where nobody called for one – a true indication of the performance.