Live Review: City & Colour, Little May

There's honestly no such thing as listening to too many nice voices or too much soothing guitar in one night. City & Colour brought Adelaide a night of peace as he swooped his way through the city on Easter Monday.

Little May's opening set was dreamy. The vocal harmonies sweetened the deal as they mingled with the twangy guitar and filled up the empty spaces of the venue. Crowd favourite Home made an appearance halfway through, accompanied by storytelling banter. A nice way to ease into a night of stories.

Gospel harmonies took over the speakers as the lights dimmed, the mellowed crowd finding ways to show their anticipation by stamping their feet, a few more vocal audience members cheering. At last, Dallas Green and his band City & Colour graced us with their presence, opening with If I Should Go Before You's epic track Woman. His stage presence was mesmerising, the twinkling fairy lights as backdrop making the whole experience even more magical. He's also one of the few artists who can pull off wearing a hat on stage to look like a brooding creative. Great headwear choice there.

Killing Time was a rock'n'roll feast, relishing in the flavours of Americana folk-rock as the Canadian-bred crooner took us on a journey of his own creation. Melodic tracks Grand Optimist and As Much As I Ever Could showed off his folk roots, while the elegance of the theatre was only enhanced by the elegance of his performance. While some of us may know and love Green for his twangy acoustic masterpieces like Save Your Scissors, there's no doubt that when he's plugged in, he's unstoppable. He tried to coax the relatively unresponsive audience into putting on their dancing shoes for Wasted Love. While the crowd may have been reluctant to participate in any kind of physical activity, at least the cheers were encouragingly appreciative.

The lighting guy deserves a raise. Unimagined stage colours danced around the stage, complementing a song "about kids staying up too late" — Sleeping Sickness. The encore was legendary, the image of a man and an acoustic guitar taking centrestage for Body In A Box and The Girl, definite favourites of the night.

We sure do love our aliased singer-songwriters in this city. Come home soon, City & Colour.