Live Review: Norman Blake & Joe Pernice

Sydney Festival audiences are lucky to be seeing this show. The first thing alt-country singer/songwriter Joe Pernice did was thank the airline representative who managed to find him a seat on a plane after he turned up at the airport almost 12 hours after his flight had departed. The moral of the story – always check whether your flight is leaving in the am or pm.

Though this may have been one of the least polished shows of this year's Spiegeltent run, there was an easy charm in the way these two alt-pop veterans traded stories and songs. While the pair presented a series of tracks they've written together, they were also able to mine their respective back catalogues which at their most famous includes The Pernice Brothers and Teenage Fanclub.

As soon as they started playing, it was easy to see why the pair gravitated towards each other when they both moved to Canada. They both share a love of sweet, pure pop music and have just the right voices to bring it to life. Singing together the harmonies were delicate and light, a  cover of The Go-Betweens' Finding You a perfect choice to show off this pair's influences.

There were plenty of stories between the songs, Pernice's wry humour eliciting chuckles from the 5pm crowd, and even sending himself into giggles when he told the audience that if they didn't like the Teenage Fanclub song Everything Flows that Blake was about to play then they must be missing a soul.

Though the mood was meandering and quiet, at a Sunday afternoon show you could hardly ask for anything else and these two men may not have looked like your typical Spiegeltent performers but their joy in the music and performing with each other was infectious.