Live Review: Passenger

As I walked up Walcott street towards the corner of Beaufort, my girlfriend said to me; “When did this happen?”

The line to get into the venue had built up and was now trailing well and truly around the corner and down the street. The last time Mike Rosenberg was in town (discounting his recent support slot for Ed Sheeran), he was busking and playing favourite local venues such as Mojos. Now he is well and truly moving up in the world, and he's taking huge steps to where the people love him.

And so, this Easter Saturday evening, a near-capacity crowd at the Astor was treated to something truly special. The tastefully minimalistic stage (just a single microphone and lanterns scattered about the place) was given to Stu Larsen first. A self-proclaimed vagabond from Bowenville, Queensland, Stu set the mood for the night with his gentle falsetto and unique style of singing. He let barely-complete words trail off into warbles of soulful melody as his soft acoustic guitar came into play. His moment to shine - King Street. I don't think a soul in the room dared speak as he sang his song about the poverty he's seen in our own backyard.

Next up, Perth's (almost) own girl, Georgia Mooney followed a very hard act. In front of a huge backdrop of curtains and lanterns, sitting at her keyboard, she looked tiny. When she started singing, however, the proportions changed immediately. Her voice is not like much that you'll hear about the place at the moment, and on Saturday night, it was haunting. Not one for conventional or typical songwriting, Georgia's melodies and harmonic progressions went places that most people in the venue would not have expected, and her voice sailed purely over the top, light as a feather.

Before long it was time for Mike Rosenberg to take his moment, and when he did the place erupted. Again, it hit home just how far he had come since the last time he was here. There are very few people in the contemporary music scene who can have an entire room the size of the Astor Theatre in all-encompassing silence for an entire song (especially when the audience was capable of making the amount of din it demonstrated it could). Passenger did it again and again, throughout the set. He recounted heart-wrenching tales to the thousand-strong crowd, and they sat there and took everything in. Or almost everyone, save a few drunken fans who seemed intent on letting everyone know that they knew all the words. Towards the end of his set, he called Stu and Georgia back onstage for a 'Peter Paul and Mary'-style vocal harmony. Proclamations of love and desire were being screamed at the timid man in the spotlight, and from time to time, you could tell he didn't quite know how to deal with that. From humble beginnings, Passenger has made a name for himself. He's made it from the work he has put in, striving for his goals harder than most, and from his sheer talent. This intimate concert was a prime example of the Australian Theatre Tour providing some of his most incredible appearances and performances to date.