Sleepy Auckland-based singer-songwriter Hollie Fullbrook (aka Tiny Ruins) quietly and politely took over the Joan Sutherland theatre on Wednesday night. It was the perfect mid-week booking for the first day of winter, with hushed tones and warm hues draping over the stage, and Fullbrook delivering a fine performance, patient and understated.
With a new 7" having just been released (with David Lynch on desk duties no less) the band had fresh material if they needed, but it was their second record, Brightly Painted One, that formed the bones of the set. Songs like Straw Into Gold, Chainmail Maker and Me At The Museum, You in the Wintergardens were a delightful throwback to true English folk music; music free of modern trappings and artifice. The last in particular sounded gorgeous. It's a meditative and romantic ballad with some great imagery in it, and the double bass played by Cass Basil had a deep, polished charm that worked really well in the room.
Fullbrook and her band felt small, but not introverted. They were happy to share, just not very loudly, and her songs are generally about small things anyway so it all fit together (sound and image, concept and execution) nicely.
They were serving mulled wine in a bar in the Botanic Gardens, and the performance by Tiny Ruins in hindsight was the musical equivalent: warm and sweet with a tiny bit of fire, with nothing too strong overpowering the delicacy of the thing itself.
