Live Review: Courtney Barnett

Teeth & Tongue lead-lady Jess Cornelius certainly knows how to woo a crowd. She and the band may only be the support to a young singer who’s suddenly got the whole world listening, but throughout their set Cornelius did a fine job of connecting with strangers. Despite having a few albums under their belt, there was an enduring freshness to their material that meandered from teen melodrama to spiritual epiphanies in suburbia, before climaxing with a surprising piece of bush doof fodder.

An insular performer at times, Courtney Barnett isn’t the type to overwhelm a crowd with her personality; it’s more the case that it seeps out over the course of the evening. With Barnett’s guitar squeezed into her abdomen, her band ripped into Elevator Operator with barely a “hello” to the audience, as she rolled her eyes around different points of the room enigmatically. But Barnett has the gift. Clearly a natural, words and melodies seemed to tumble out of her with an ease that seems miraculous to those of us who struggle, as the mostly static crowd gazed up adoringly and whooped enthusiastically whenever the opportunity arose. Her rhythm section demonstrated the purity of keeping it simple, as Dave Mudie on a stripped-down drum kit kept it clean and bass-man Bones Sloane drove Barnett’s melodies from the ground up. Barnett was often at her best when the duo hit an effortlessly propulsive groove and allowed her stream-of-conscious lyrics to go for a wander, a la Avant Gardener. Sloane was also magnanimous enough to publicly lament The Bakery’s impending closure. “They should keep the cunt open,” he declared to wild cheers.

Cajoled into a bit of chatter while retuning, Barnett opened up somewhat, explaining to us the “Perth curse,” whereby on each of her previous occasions here she’s – in her own words – played a shit gig and hated herself afterwards. “But not this time,” she coyly grinned as the crowd erupted in glee. A ka-blammo version of Pedestrian At Best finished up the main set and despite having played all their well-known material, Ms Barnett succumbed to the cries of “Court-neee, Court-neee,” and returned for a solo take on The Lemonhead’s tender but disarmingly funny Being Around and a full band cover of The Easybeats I’ll Make You Happy.