Live Review: Courtney Barnett, Teeth & Tongue

Shadow Electric is great; it even rocks a back room with ping pong tables and fake grass. It's cold and pissing down with rain outside, but once nestled into the bandroom our night is transformed. Jess Cornelius (aka Teeth & Tongue) is wailing like Kate Bush, her magical voice mutating the sparse, rhythmic layers of the music into something magical when she's on form. Although Cornelius often chooses to almost speak her vocals, which shrinks their impact, she's still a confident, engaging presence onstage. Good Man is ghostly and abstract. The band finish on The Party Is You, about a theoretical party that is apparently much better than a real party. 

Courtney Barnett arrives onstage and her band kicks off with Lance Jr, “I masturbated to the songs you wrote” the familiar opening line. This gig is the hot ticket, and Barnett and band are in rocking form. Barnett's star has been rising swiftly of late and there seem to be a lot of people in the crowd who are here to see what all the fuss is about. Apparently this is her first-ever sold-out gig: “And I don't think I know a lot of you, so that's a nice change,” Barnett comments in typically low-key, self-effacing mode. Her rock mojo is definitely rising. The band channel The Black Keys on David, Canned Tomatoes (Whole) triggers an epic wig-out, and Don't Apply Compression Gently, from the EP being launched tonight (A Sea Of Split Peas) is a perfect example of the loose, slacker rock we've come to expect from Barnett, but it's also tight somehow – she fits syllables in differently. Barnett writes small, intimate songs with Melbourne references, such as Depreston, which is about looking for a place to live in that fair suburb and having a coffee percolator that saves spending $23 a week. What will she write about when she's a rock superstar? History Eraser is, as you'd expect, the song that makes the crowd go wild. Are You Looking After Yourself, which paraphrases a worried phone call from parents, must be an odd song for her to sing now. “You should start some sort of trust fund/Just in case you fail,” she sings with a winning grin on her face. Tonight's version of Anonymous Club is lovely, dreamy and Valium-slow. The band are having heaps of fun and Barnett, who's just come back from New York, can't wipe the grin off her face all night.

They leave the stage and about a third of the crowd leaves too, missing the last two songs; Barnett performs a beautiful solo version of Ode To Odetta before the band return for a souped-up version of Scotty Says.