Live Review: Goldfrapp, Xavier Dunn

Somehow, it wasn't quite the expectant buzz of seeing an artist after some years' absence. Perhaps this was due to the gig — held in the perfectly-frayed industrial surrounds of Carriageworks' big hall — being billed as a Vivid Festival 'Event', meaning that there were a number of people present that were there more to be seen than to be entertained. Or maybe it's just the slightly nervous way the world is currently is, with heavier than usual police presence, including a couple of those friendly black Labradors, making people a little subdued.

But Xavier Dunn was pleased to be here, even playing to a sparsely filled room while most loitered outside sampling the street food vans. So excited as he bounced behind his workstation, occasionally strapping one of them old-timey electric guitars, he actually ran out of songs before his time was up — so quite neatly improvised one on the spot. "Thanks Sydney, you rocked!" OK, sure.

The eponymous Alison Goldfrapp and her modern-style band — impossibly stylish women behind a couple of platforms with banks of synths, along with more traditional human bass and drums, and even sporadic outbreaks of keytar — crank up right on the dot of 9pm (yes, welcome to Sydney...). The sound fills this quite grand high-roofed space, and you wonder how NSW's sell-everything-that-isn't-nailed-down-and-a-few-things-that-are government hasn't yet flogged the site off for apartments.

In a glorious alfoil silver suit, rather than the more sombre ensembles she's apparently been sporting recently, Ms Goldfrapp commands the stage. A voice breathy against big beat drums, then an arched-back Florence-like whoop, and that Morricone whistle to open Lovely Head. Galactic backdrops spun around and flooded light over her.

The dilettantes often seemed to be asking "Do you know that one?", as they appeared not to know there'd been songs since the huge neon blast that is Ooh La La, including recent return to form Silver Eye — although its pumping Systemagic is a highlight. That unfamiliarity might have been why things never completely busted out, although the early appearance of T.Rexy stomp Number 1 and the main-set closing Ride A White Horse threatened to. Well before the 10.30 curfew, it felt like a disco toward the end of the night, rather than a party all the way through. Alison declares Sydney "…so nice, and warm, and clean". Maybe that's the problem.