Live Review: Julia Jacklin, Jessica Ribeiro

Under gloomy skies, the lights twinkled at Chevron Gardens, with Melbourne's Jessica Ribeiro opening the night after Memphis songwriter Julian Baker cancelled all dates on her Australian tour due to unforeseen personal matters. Dressed in blue, Ribeiro was the perfect replacement with her indie folk-rock sounds and playful lyrics as she kicked off the set with Hurry Back to Love. Following a quick guitar tune, Ribeiro played new songs Stranger and Love Is The Score Of Nothing from her forthcoming new album, showcasing a new sound that moves away from her 2015 Kill It Yourself album. From Cry Baby to Kill It Yourself, Ribeiro’s 45-minute set was delightful and got us all fired up and ready for the main event.

After a busy week with press for her new album Crushing, Julia Jacklin was ready to get back into the groove of playing music rather than talking about it. Guitar in hand, Jacklin kicked off the show with new track Body, taking our emotions on a rollercoaster with its deeply relatable lyrics about a complicated breakup. Glued to Jacklin, we've never seen a crowd so immersed in an artist’s music before, especially when the new album isn’t even out yet. Her vocals were on another level, hitting all the notes in Leadlight and Motherland, and really were just pure joy to hear.

Jacklin turned it up a notch with the intense and deeply haunting breakup tune, Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You, about the struggle of the aftermath letting someone go. She joked about her mum actually still being friends with her ex-boyfriend’s mum and that they literally just had dinner together back home. 

We couldn’t escape Turn Me Down; the powerful lyrics kept our hearts racing and our eyes glued to the stage. “I don’t want to be touched all the time/I raised my body up to be mine,” Jacklin sung on Head Alone, pulling heart strings with its honesty and dreamy guitar licks, before she walked off stage, leaving the crowd wanting more. Coming back for one more song, the joyful, tongue-in-cheek Pressure To Party ended an amazing set. Those incredible vocals were mesmerising, we were left breathless from her honest lyrics and in awe from the delightful folk tunes that kept ringing in our ears way after the show.