Live Review: Sarah Blasko, Cameron Avery

It took all of around 30 seconds for Cameron Avery to win over the crowd. His witty, relaxed banter instantly eased us into his warm, slow piano tales. Focusing on lost love and heartbreak, Avery sat firmly within the adult-contemporary genre with this performance. Remaining largely within his recent release Ripe Dreams, Pipe Dreams - and switching back and forth between keyboard and guitar, tracks like Wasted On Fidelity and Disposable cut straight though the crowd. Avery's true promise was demonstrated through closing, yet-to-be-released track She Meant Everything To Me, the slightly grittier sound and desert-blues rhythm cemented with his mature songwriting to perfectly close out his set.

With Astor Theatre in darkness, a blue spotlight shone down onto Sarah Blasko and silenced the crowd. Blasko's voice echoed throughout the venue, her mesmerising, unaccompanied Down On Love vocal a jaw-dropping opening to this blissful set.

Although Blasko was still clearly suffering from a recent virus, her performance was nothing but divine and sounded as rich as ever. Be it sitting at her grand piano for I Awake or during the sweeping chorus shifts of I Wanna Be Your Man, Blasko has obviously put a lot of thought into what makes an unforgettable show. Lighting design was kept simple, but each song was illuminated to accentuate its tone, which extracted further emotion from Blasko's stripped-back sound and created an intense intimacy throughout. Blasko's setlist swept through her various records with showcase moments such as during the folk-hearted Bury This featuring ukulele and eliciting thunderous applause.

It's still obligatory for Blasko to include her cover of Cold Chisel's Flame Trees in her shows and it's still spine tingling to hear her velvety treatment. Not many artists can orchestrate an evening that peels their craft back to such a bare level as Blasko has demonstrated via The Soloist tour. This will go down as her best tour to date.