Live Review: Vance Joy, Amy Shark

It may have been the first day of autumn, but Adelaide turned on the scorching heat for the first of the Supercars Superloop Adelaide 500 after-race concerts, featuring Amy Shark and Vance Joy. Seven months earlier, in stark contrast to tonight, Vance Joy performed in support of Bob Dylan, on a freezing winter’s night in a very large and very cold tent.

Thankfully, the weather didn’t keep too many away and those in attendance were treated to a fantastic showcase of Australian musical talent. Local acts Delia Obst and Tales helped warm up the crowd (pun intended), while Amy Shark arrived on stage in, unbelievably, a thick black jacket. She clearly hadn’t received the memo that the temperature was near boiling. 

From the start, Shark and band were thumpingly loud. From five rows back, the synthesised bass was like a rhythmic breeze making the hairs on our arms bristle in time to the music. The jacket was quickly discarded, and she moved happily around the stage, all the time telling us how much this was her favourite show of the year so far.

Shark’s one-hour set was a treat for fans and newcomers alike. Songs from her Love Monster album and Night Thinker EP were showcased, including standouts Weekends and an acoustic version of Psycho (complete with a shout-out to collaborator blink-182's Mark Hoppus). A cover of Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag had the large crowd singing along, mostly in tune, but it was her big hits I Said Hi (proudly sitting at number five on the recent triple j Hottest 100) and Adore that worked the fans into a frenzy. 

Vance Joy took to the stage solo and opened with the serene Call If You Need Me, before being joined by his band (including a mostly inconspicuous horn section), for Mess Is Mine. Joy used his one-hour window wisely, interspersing better-known material with album tracks and even a funky mash-up of Lionel Richie’s All Night Long and Justin Bieber’s Sorry (on which the horn section dominated).

Anyone who doubted whether Vance Joy was a suitable headline act for such a big event would surely have been silenced by the number of fantastic songs that were offered in such a relatively short set – Saturday Sun, We’re Going Home, Fire And The Flood and the amazing Riptide. This was a class act that was able to get both the weathered petrolheads and his younger fans all popping along in unison. An enjoyable night was had by all.