Live Review: Elle King, Woodlock

Melbourne-based busking trio Woodlock enjoy themselves on stage like it's a Friday night. They share their collection of heart-warming, feel-good songs. A quirky break-up song, Lemons, gains momentum with some audience participation as they encourage plenty of hand clapping and knee tapping just as they would if playing on busy city sidewalks.

With eyes doused in gold glitter and in a long flowing dress, Elle King shines even before opening her mouth. And once she starts to sing Where The Devil Don't Go, her serious pipes and loud personality blow us away. It's her first 'real' show in Australia and King admits she is as nervous as a teenage girl at a birthday party, thinking that no one would come. The room is packed and this makes all her stress fade away in an instant. In the last 48 hours she tells us she's kissed a kangaroo, learnt some Aussie lingo and has even showered for us twice. Now she's ready to get "fucking rowdy".

King tells us she's only been dumped once in her life but she swears it will never happen again as she picks up her banjo and plays two songs, each dedicated to gender, back to back — Good To Be A Man and Good For Nothing Woman. King's a self-confessed "tough-ass bitch", but she gets a bit sentimental after hearing the audience sing her lyrics back to her. She claims that nothing good comes from Ohio, but she's come all the way across the world and definitely proves herself wrong.

With a beer in one hand and a whiskey in the other, she chants her backstage mantra, "Have a good time, all the time!" She tells us to "find what makes [us] individual and hold onto it" as she shares her sassy anthem Last Damn Night and a powerhouse rendition of The Beatles' Oh! Darling.

After spotting her brother's girlfriend in the crowd, King excitedly pulls her up on stage and they head backstage to bond. Returning for an encore loaded with attitude on America's Sweetheart and Khia's My Neck My Back (Lick It), which she dedicates to all the ladies in the house. King happily accepts a collection of panties from the audience knowing that she can now put off doing laundry for at least the next two days.