Missy Higgins @ Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW Australia 08/05/2018 written by Brendan Lewis.

ONCE IN A RED MOON

May 2018: The land of Missy Higgins’ past loves is left as nothing but a barren apocalyptic wasteland, full of broken dreams and despair. This treacherous ever-changing wasteland leaves Missy Higgins with a sense of solastalgia, a feeling of distress and depression, caused by the changing physical and emotional environments surrounding her life, which she shares with us tonight and sends her on the path to writing her new album ‘Solastalgia’. A glimpse of light shines up ahead, calling to Missy, will she answer it’s call and make it out of this darkness, or will the ‘Solastalgia’ swallow her whole…

As we enter the musical lands, we are greeted with the first frontier of the journey, a stripped away piano solo by Missy Higgins. The air around her is still, silent and heavy with emotion, as she pours her heart out into every vocal cry, while her piano melodies carry us down a stream of raw emotion. For this song, the sound is crystal clear and perfectly suited for Missy’s piano solo, but how will the sound develop down the stream when the rest of the band emerge.

Missy Higgins now gets up from her piano with an almighty grunt then explains “even with having my water bottle I still grunt like a f****ng old man getting up”, then welcomes us ashore. The landscape at the end of the previous emotional river is lit with 49 Candles (yep, I counted EVERY single one), which gives off a haunting sway vibe with ghostly vocal harmonies floating around Missy’s sorrowful voice, carrying her down the path of the set.

As we walk down this path, Missy’s voice and her bands’ accompanying music guides us with a soft gentle sway in ‘Don’t Ever’, with a delicate breeze of nostagia in its’ major-tone essence. The path spirals and thickens in layers as the drums enter after the songs’ first chorus, followed by Missy’s sweet vocals creeping up like leaves caught in the musical wind before the layers increase dramatically for ‘All In My Head’. The sound mixers prove themselves to the crowd as in this song, the layers grow even thicker like vines surrounding the pathway, yet the sound is spot on, crystal clear and holds all the sounds evenly and comfortably, to compliment one another in perfect symmetry.  The ghostly vocal harmonies carry Missy’s exquisite voice as the songs’ nostalgic vibe reminds me of an old village, that you used to visit when you were a kid, but this tale is far from over.

Before reaching our next destination, Missy shares a story of how she had a break from music for a while to try and find herself, she tried meds, they didn’t work, she even tried going to uni, it didn’t work, and in the end it lead her back to music.

The next landscape on the journey is ‘Ten Days’, with it’s more blues-like flicks of the piano and musical scent, nifty show-off vocal improvisations and more harmonious vocal layers (yep, those bloody ghosts are still hanging around). This is followed up by the “revenge follow-up to Ten Days”, ‘Peachy’, a brutal apocalyptic storm of up-beat proportion, and beautiful yet biting vocal gusts.

After opening track off Missy’s latest album ‘Starting Again’ with it heavy-hearted sombre feel and uplifting power-surge nearing its’ end followed by the even darker ‘Red Moon’, Missy shares more stories about making her new album ‘Solastalgia’ and the meaning behind it. She now goes on to tell us how her current partner told her, “there’s not one song on here about me, I want a f****ng love song!” which Missy replies, “have you heard my love songs? They don’t end well, do you really want one?”, and how that lead to her endeavour to write a positive love song. The end result is the next song ‘Futon Couch’, a song about how they met. A gooey girly love song full of bright and bubbly layers and heart fluttering effects with Missy crying out in declaration. This song is a nice cool-breeze of light to the dark wastelands of the show so far.

The lush bright scenery around us is sustained with ‘Song For Sammy’, a quick little song that Missy plays on the acoustic guitar showing off more musical diversity in her skills (ie playing piano and guitar). Missy brings another burst of humour as she over accentuates a high and low vocal note in the songs’ second verse, to really take the piss out of herself. She now invites Gordi onto the stage, who warmed the stage for Missy tonight and the rest of the tour, for an acoustic duet of ‘Sound Of White’, followed by ‘Everyone’s Waiting’, with Missy and Gordi taking turns at leading vocals in a call and response-like manner.

For the rest of this journey which is starting to seem a little less apocalyptic (thanks for messing up the theme for me Missy), we encounter loved classics like ‘The Special Two’, new sure to be hit ‘Cemetery’, further displaying more electronic/pop elements to her sounds, my personal childhood favourite ‘Scar’ and finally uplifting bright finish ‘Steer’. All the songs in the homestretch feature differing layers of blues, pop, soul, acoustic, and even one song that was an up-beat rock song that Missy performs on the electric guitar which seems a bit odd in the set, but it works. We also discover more story-telling from Missy, her dazzling charisma throughout songs as she’s an arm talker and obviously likes to express the music physically (get your minds out of the gutter) and all performed beautifully by Missy with vocal improvisations here and there, more prominently in ‘Scar’ (which btw Missy, it makes it a little hard to sing along to, as you requested, when you’re not singing the normal notes). And finally, Missy tells us that she doesn’t do encores anymore, they tend to piss her off and goes on to re-enact a punters reaction at a concert when expecting more songs. So the journey closes with ‘Steer’, a bright uplifting happy ending to the chaotic apocalyptic love song documentary.

Looking back on this journey, it was really like a documovie of Missy Higgins’ post apocalyptic loves as she calls them. Missy spoke a lot between songs, but she did so in an engaging charismatic way that didn’t drag on spoiling the flow. The musical performance from Missy and her band was spot on and perfectly complemented one another. All in all, I had a great experience and better yet, would definitely go to another Missy Higgins show in the hopefully near future!

Missy Higgins @ Sydney Coliseum Theatre, February 28 2020

WHAT MAKES A CONCERT SPECIAL?

What makes a concert special? A truly satisfying and memorable event? When you go to as many concerts as I do, simply going to a concert in general, is not necessarily special. So what does make one special?

Is it perhaps that this is the first concert in a brand-new state of the art venue since it’s official re-opening? Maybe the fact that Missy Higgins, a household name in the Australian contemporary pop scene is giving this new venue a whirl? Is it the staff and accessibility of the venue, or perhaps none of the above, and just simply the performance and sound and nothing else?

Now because this review is, well, special, I’m going to do things a bit differently. Because there’s a lot to cover, I’m going to pick and choose selecting things to treat you to, like a gourmet meal, so bon appetit! 

First, the staff and venue accessibility entrees. As soon as I enter the Eastern foyer, staff, namely Patricia, greeted me to assist with signing in and then gave very specific and helpful directions to my companion. When this venue was in it’s planning phase, it was described as “the West's answer to a second Opera House”. Quite a tall order! Now, we all know and love the iconic Opera House, but as far as accessibility goes, it isn’t without fault, seeing as the venue was built in a time before elevators I suspect, or at least before a great need for them. As a result, despite adaptation over the years, there is at least one instance in which stairs are unavoidable. This venue on the other hand, has been built in a time where elevators and OH&S regulations are required, so as a result, getting from the Eastern foyer to the theatre is not only easy thanks to constant support from staff along the way, but also because there are completely level walkways and elevators throughout the venue, regardless if you’re ticketed to sit at the back of the balcony. This has an effect much like a sweet and succulent entree to warm and invigorate the taste-buds before the main meal.

The main course, being the performance of course, is a complex one, so I’ll break it down into four parts. First we have the ingredients, which in this case are the songs Missy chooses to play and the talking and crowd interaction throughout the set. Second, there’s the quantity, so at the end of the show, are you feeling satisfied, or are you left still hungry for more, or are you bloated and feel the meal was too big. Third, you have the sauce and seasoning, which is the sound from the band, acoustics of the venue, and sound mixer. And finally, how well was everything cooked? If you can’t put that metaphor together yourself, pretty much, did Missy and her band perform each song well?

The songs and talking/crowd interaction; Normally from what I’ve experienced at concerts, the most effective way to open a show is to head straight into the first song, which should be an energy lift, to raise the energy and get the crowd excited, and then after the first or second song, then talk to the audience. But this is a, well, special show (if you’ve made a drinking game from everytime I say well, special, you’re probably getting quite smashed by now!), so when Missy, and if I’m correct, only Missy, first walks out onto the stage, she greets us, not a shy or simple “hey Sydney, thanks for coming! This first song is X and goes something like…”, no, Missy slices through everyone’s expectation and breaks out well-rehearsed and tasteful humour! Example being “wow, what a beautiful venue! Honestly this is all I know of Rooty Hill”, Before introducing her first song, a delicate and raw song that is only her exquisite voice and well garnished piano playing which brings a more relaxed casual essence to the atmosphere in the theatre. This humour is spotted throughout the set after most of Missy’s songs, interacting with her audience in instances such as when a woman yells out “can my girlfriend sing with you?!” which Missy replies “uhm, that’s not really in the set, how loud is your voice?” and the absolutely priceless instance in which Missy combines a personal anecdote of her life and how the song links to the moment, in which Missy tells us how she was given the opportunity to record a song for a TV show on Foxtel, and how she’s not up with the whole Foxtel-y world but “I figured out a loophole. Sign up for Foxtel on demand, do the ten day free trial, watch the series in ten days, then cancel the subscription! Bob’s your uncle!” which is followed by an eruption of laughter! and how before playing a particular song, she told us the story leading up to it in which she went through a phase of not knowing if she could continue with the demands of the music industry, keep writing music so she “as cliche as it is, had to go and find myself, I went to India, got diarrhea etc etc and eventually it lead me back to music”.

Now as far as the songs go, after the first delicacy of the piano and vocals solo, Missy then introduces the rest of her band, including drums, bass, keyboard, guitar and backing vocals. These musical ingredients give the set a wide range of textures to play with! The set flows from one song to the next according to the rise and fall of musical energy more so than the most popular songs being last. This is the equivalent of a multi-course meal tailored to introduce each flavour one after the other in the most complementive way. Another noteworthy technique is adding a couple of acoustic solo songs roughly in the middle of the set, giving the palate a cleansing break to emphasize the the burst of flavours in the second half. One of these acoustic songs by Missy features her on a Ukulele giving a funky flavour twist to the typical pop music elements.

As far as the sound goes, the sauce and seasoning, there’s a few points that need outlining. The first, is this theatre is one, fully carpeted and by the sounds of it, has lots of sound absorbing materials and well crafted shaping of the roof and walls to best manipulate sound, A.K.A, good acoustics. The problem with the Opera House is that the Concert Hall I’m fairly certain, was designed for non-amplified sounds, commonly well, opera singing. So the Concert Hall’s design is to best carry and resonate sound throughout the venue, which can be tricky to tame for contemporary music of today. This venue however, was perfectly tailored for optimal performance from the sound system which brings a whole new meaning to loud and clear! This of course, is nothing without the sound mixer doing a good or bad job of the performers’ sound, which in this case, is superb! All sounds on stage are perfectly complementive to one another, whilst highlighting Missy’s vocals, and the backing vocals just shy of power to Missy’s. It also elevates and highlights the guitar solo’s in a few songs’ bridge sections, likewise with the piano solo’s in others. So does that answer the point of the bands’ sound? If not, let me spell it out for you… S, c, r, u, m, p, t, i, o, u, s! There is so much musical colour and tantalizing elements as I mentioned before, to the blues vibes in popular tracks like ‘Scar’ and ‘Ten Days’, which the latter has a more enriched blues energy for this live rendition, which is uplifting and delighting despite the emotional content of the song. Not to mention the contrasting darker feel of ‘Cemetary’ which paradoxically has a potent dance aroma to it.

And to sum it all up, am I and the rest of the audience satisfied? Did the show not have enough? thus were we left wanting more? Or are we bloated? Well, a little bit of all the above I guess! I’m thoroughly satisfied on all counts, and it was the perfect amount/proportion, but because it was so delicious, and I consumed it as much as I possibly could, I am quite bloated, but it’s the same feeling like when you’ve eaten a whole bunch of your mum’s homemade Baileys, white chocolate and Maltesers cheesecake… 

More please! That’s what makes a concert well, special and memorable!