Live Review: Mahalia

Jack Gray was just starting to warm up the crowd when this reviewer walked in. Illuminated on the stage, he was the centre of attention, despite being accompanied by a keyboardist and drummer. Gray's heavenly voice carried across the venue and he seemed genuinely stoked to see some people singing back. His songs are warm, bright and leave you with a smile on your face. With only had three released songs under his belt, a lot of new tracks were debuted – each as wonderful and groovy as the last – setting the perfect tone for Mahalia.

Mahalia's first visit to Australia was met with a voracious enthusiasm. The intimate Lansdowne band room was sold out and getting increasingly steamy as she graced the stage. Launching into No Pressure, Mahalia was instantly met with cheers, even interrupting her performance as she sung a particularly great melisma or lyric.

Mahalia is a storyteller and provided insight and context as to how or why each song was written. Stating they are "mostly about geezers", she followed the comment up with One Night Only. Most of us are envious and impressed to learn that most songs were written before age 18.

Mahalia confessed that her disorganisation deprived us of a Little Simz appearance who she then points out in the crowd – and whom yells back her love – in song Proud Of Me.

Bringing out her acoustic guitar, Rihanna’s Work got the Mahalia treatment, before she further revealed her vulnerabilities (and excellent spoken word) on Back Up Plan. Mahalia’s ability to effortlessly flow from spoken word, to rhymes to velvety smooth vocals is stunning.

Taking it back up a notch, we had Good Reason to dance, before Mahalia slashed our hopes of an encore by pointing out their banality.

Thankfully she didn’t leave us high and dry (although dry she was not when she wrote this song), launching into Sober which catapulted her into stardom and revealing it was actually written drunk and on the verge of quitting.

The final song was about a boy who she told us not to name, explaining she took one for the team to release it, closing with I Wish I Missed My Ex.