Live Review: Ryan Adams, Middle Kids

Emerging Sydney four-piece Middle Kids seem completely at ease on The Tivoli's big stage before a healthy early turnout; perhaps playing live on Conan earlier this year to a massive American audience makes a Tuesday night Brisbane crowd seem slightly less daunting. Opening with the heartfelt pop of Your Love they display a dexterous, vaguely '80s sound, whether via the melodic Old River or the upbeat Fire In Your Eyes, which finds frontwoman Hannah Joy's vocals soaring throughout the rousing climax. The restrained Doing It Right is both personal and passionate, while they rock hard on the catchy Edge Of Town — the tune they chose to showcase over US airwaves — and finish strongly with the Americana lilt of Never Start.

Tonight's gig sold out a while back and, accordingly, The Tivoli is bulging at the seams as Ryan Adams and his band wander nonchalantly into the fray; the stage adorned with massive stacks of amps and speakers boxes, flickering TV sets — which will later play snippets of old westerns during proceedings — and random other paraphernalia that gives the setting and stately, informal vibe. They waste no time before breaking into a pristine version of Do You Still Love Me? from new album Prisoner, then bouncing back to the polar end of Adams' storied career with a boogie-tinged rendition of To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High) from his acclaimed 2000 debut Heartbreaker.

The typically tousled Adams is as inscrutable as ever but seems in better spirits than during previous forays to this venue — especially his 2007 debut where he left the stage abruptly after a few songs and didn't return for 20 minutes, citing lighting matters as the impetus behind the seemingly unprovoked interruption — yet he still offers little in the way of between-song dialogue in the early part of the set (later explaining that he fears he's losing his voice, presumably in part due to last night's "secret" three-hour show at Woolly Mammoth).

His accomplished band help ensure that audience interaction is virtually redundant anyway as they move seamlessly through a slew of strong songs including Gimme Something Good, Two, Dirty Rain, Outbound Train and Prisoner itself, the newer songs slotting in perfectly alongside the classics being cherry-picked from Adams' previous 15 albums. After Stay With Me and the beautifully down-tempo Invisible Riverside, the singer takes a fan to task for continually yelling out for early classic Come Pick Me Up (another Heartbreaker staple), using a random analogy about the original Exorcist film to highlight the benefit of patience in such matters.

He moves on with a run of The Cardinals-era tunes in Sweet Illusions, Dear John and Magnolia Mountain, interspersed with even earlier track (from 2001's Gold) When The Stars Go Blue, the staging very literal at this juncture as the backdrop is flooded with approximations of blue stars. As they move through the upbeat New York, New York and the accomplished Everybody Knows, you can't help but marvel at the grab-bag of classic-sounding songs Adams has at his disposal these days, before he ups the ante even further with a spellbinding solo acoustic rendition of Oasis' staple Wonderwall, the venue immediately so quiet you could hear a pick drop (apart from respectfully hushed crowd vocals at crucial junctures).

There's a nonchalant gravity to everything Adams touches, with no need for affectations or pretentions as he lets his music tell its own story, although he does indulge in some epic jams during Cold Roses and massive wafts of dry ice flood the room during the start of Fix It, a flashback to a long-gone smokier time. A jovial Adams improvises a song about a local girl who "looks like Wednesday Addams" and by now the anecdotes are coming thick and fast, a touching story about a couple of random meetings with Bob Dylan segueing into a beautiful rendition of My Winding Wheel, the crowd finally finding full voice as well.

Peaceful Valley descends into a massive wall of riffs and noodling - delivered in a manner that's fun rather than bombastic - and they just keep pumping out song after song, Kim leading into Anything I Say To You Now into To Be Without You with barely a pause for breath. By now, well over two hours have expired. The venue's midnight curfew is getting closer and closer, but nothing will derail this runaway train and they push the restrictions to the minute by finishing with powerful takes on Mockingbird, Do I Wait and the jubilant Shakedown On 9th Street to close things down with no time remaining for the so often unnecessary encore ritual.

All in all it's been a long and extensive run through a canon that continues growing from strength to strength, a near three-hour musical celebration of all things Ryan Adams, after which probably only the Come Pick Me Up guy will be feeling even slightly short-changed.