Courtney BarnettCourtney Barnett, modern-day suburban troubadour, brought the first of two blistering rock shows to Australia’s arguably most prestigious live music venue, the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, last night.
Still, the venue didn’t totally lend itself to the kind of rapidly escalating, often mosh-worthy live performance Barnett and her band – long-time bandmates bassist Bones Sloane and drummer Dave Mudie, plus Brit Katie Harkin on keys and guitar – are known for: it’s the kind of venue where punters happily sit on their tushes until right up until the encore, not really moving much. And Barnett’s crumbling instrumental breaks and sometimes howling vox deserve a full-body response from her audience, whose best effort was in encore closer Pedestrian At Best and the mid-set tight pop of Elevator Operator.
A lack of audience participation – the first time you could really hear the audience start to croon along was on Barnett’s breakout Avant Gardener before the rousing refrain of Depreston: “If you’ve got a spare half a million, you could knock it down and start rebuilding” – didn’t mean that Barnett wasn’t grateful for the opportunity to play on that storied stage. She even tried to induce the audience to make more noise, standing in a T-shirt and slacks in its centre, the stage lined by fairy lights and illuminated by ring lights that pulsed and changed with mid-song changes of tempo and sheer force.
The venue though added a certain polite reverence to proceedings, which was almost reflected in the choice of set list: this was not a festival set, or one from any of the venues Barnett has filled in Sydney before, from when she came up at (RIP) Goodgod Small Club with her early EPs to the ornate ceilings of the Enmore Theatre. It was still as immediate and visceral as any of her live sets, a garage-y spin on album tracks that became almost manic as, led by her guitar, she careened around the stage or fell backwards from the drum riser. What made the set list so unexpected to begin with was that it was quite light on songs from her debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. The first cut is five songs deep, Small Poppies, with its intense instrumental outro and roaring chorus, leaving space mostly for tracks from May’s Tell Me How You Really Feel to breathe and splinter.
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The focal point was Barnett’s voice, and her witty lyrics, quick barbs mixed with earnest sentiment, being at their most powerful when she allowed herself be as vulnerable and simultaneously ferocious as she needed to be: see set highlight I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch, and her dig at trolls and toxic masculinity, Nameless, Faceless.
Barnett closed the main part of the set with Charity and History Eraser, a brilliant crowd-pleasing choice that brought the mood back up after the sprawling breakdown of the brutal and baldly emotional Kim’s Caravan: “Take what you want from me”. She returned solo to cover Gillian Welch’s Everything Is Free, before bringing the band back on for Anonymous Club and the passionate and provocative Pedestrian At Best. Barnett, alone on stage again, fiddling with effects and noodling out the last few notes, then sent us out into the dark night.
