Live Review: Matt Corby, RW Grace

It's a muggy Wednesday night; a few people linger outside HQ. RW Grace's soaring vocals could be heard from a mile away. Her passionate performance hits like a truck that you kinda don't mind being run over by. As a top-quality opener, she grins at the crowd she's managed to weave into her web and ends with a groovy cover of Robyn's Dancing On My Own. 

Almost as overwhelming as the sheer amount of people squishing into the venue is the amount of hair. Honestly, even if Matt Corby didn't show up tonight there wouldn't be a lack of lookalikes to take his place on stage. But alas, the man arrives (much to everyone's delight). As he opens with a bit of slightly indecipherable banter, we're told to expect new songs and are given the usual nod of appreciation for coming out tonight. The room quietens and Corby lifts his fingers to the mic, closes his eyes, hesitates a moment and starts clicking. And there it is. The spell he manages to cast so well works. The lamentingly beautiful story of Monday makes its way through the crowd. His hands are clasped as if he is not a god (as everyone seems to believe), but just a man, telling a story to a crowd of eager and patient listeners.

The rest of the band joins Corby on stage, looking elegant and humble. The simple lighting provides a religious aura, creating a spiritual background to the music. The raw, organic vibrations have a very obvious effect on the crowd and highlight the importance of being able to deliver music purely and simply.

Corby braces himself against the mic as if overwhelmed by the emotions and feel of his words, a powerful force only heightened by the collective release of emotion in the room. The man could make a stadium feel like a home. The set consists mainly of new tracks, boosting the anticipation for the release of his album early next year. He brushes locks of hair away from his face as he hunches over the mic, almost intimately as if it's an extension of himself and a vehicle between the stage and us. Resolution makes an appearance, the crowd attempting to match his falsetto and swaying with the beats. After he's decided he's thrown enough new bluesier tracks out there, he eases back into the hauntingly epic Brother and Souls A'Fire.

"We've come to the end of our journey," he says reflectively, before before borrowing some lyrics from Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come. Matt Corby is metaphors. His journey is only just beginning.