Live Review: Lior, Domini Forster

In a warmly lit theatre with walls covered in camels, paintings, statues and all kinds of artwork, it was a night of thoughtful lyrics wrapped in acoustic folk melodies. Domini Forster opened for the mature crowd, in an intimate Lounge perfect for musical storytelling. Armed with her ukulele, Forster owned the stage, flanked by Caitlin Cataldo on glockenspiel and the undeniably charismatic cajon/melodica player and percussionist Jacob Zinman-Jeanes, who tried his hand at singing during an adorable cover of Frank Sinatra's, Do I Worry. Domini's bubbly personality held the crowd through a slight technical mishap to begin the show, and transferred through to her music. The tiny songstress has all the vocal and lyrical ability to become a dominant voice in Australian indie folk.

Lior was at home onstage instantly. A well polished musician who knows and is known by his audience intimately, his vocals and guitar were characteristically near-perfect as the Israeli/Australian-blooded singer-songwriter played three new songs off his upcoming album (funded by fans on the crowdfunding website, Pledge Music)  and performed older tracks such as Daniel and Autumn Flow. After giving it a rest during live gigs for a while Bedouin Song made a triumphant return, much to the appreciation of the crowd who hung off every lyric.

It felt like a party at Lior's house as he picked out friends from the crowd and backstage for cameo appearances, making for a more diverse night of acoustic folk. His ability to tell stories through his lyrics and achieve feeling with music is unlike any other Australian artist at the moment. Like an Australian James Taylor, Lior took us through stories of his grandfather, of old flames, and overseas adventures as in Diego And The Village Girl which he closed with, until two minutes of cheering forced his hand to do an encore and play This Old Love. Though it felt a little pre-planned, and didn't take much forcing.

He closed the night with a beautiful Hebrew and Arabic hymn, channeling his Israeli roots and leaving everyone with a sweet taste in their mouth after a thoroughly enjoyable evening.