Making Mirrors

With the release of Making Mirrors, being easily one of the albums of 2011, and despite having seen him live on three other occasions this year, Nicole, Mary and I went along to the Gotye gig on Friday night, to see it played out on stage again.

I drove down to Melbourne after work, and met Nicole and Mary at Tazio for dinner, and a chance for the three of us to catch up with each of our recent overseas trips of late. After pizzas and beer, we then made our way in the rain to The Forum.

Opening the night was Oliver + Martin, who were well into their fun hip hop set when we took our places in front of the stage.

Gotye opened with the album opener, Making Mirrors, before filling the theater with the percussion and environmental message of Eyes Wide Open.

Smoke And Mirrors allowed the 10 piece orchestra on stage to stretch their scope, with the intricate detail of the track coming to life from the recorded track through additional drummer, and horn section, backing Wally. The animation added to the life and energy of the song.

Chatting to the crowd, Wally confessed that with the beginning of the album tour, he has come down with a chest infection, with his voice a little shaky. Here, he introduced the vocoder as a tool to compensate, and launched into State Of The Art. Images from the video clip projected on the screen behind him, this track about a family organ and the loss of natural sounds in released music today.

Easy Way Out, and I Feel Better got the crowd moving, although many didn't seem to know the album material. Wally then started to instruct the crowd to sing the catch to Save Me, which was really just thwarted by his low volume vocals at the time. Having seen this attempted a couple of times now, I think the idea of splitting male and female audience voices would have been great...if only everyone had caught on! He joked that he had clearly not managed to write a sing-a-long hook for this song after all - but the song was still amazing!

Don't Worry, I'll Be Watching was then followed by the accidentally released cord for Somebody That I Used To Know. Tempted to switch from playing it as a result, Wally soon launched into the massive single, to the crowd's delight. As the song worked up to the moment of the female vocal, the anticipation built...and there was a feeling of disappointment that Kimbra didn't manage to grace the stage for her part in the smash, but her silhouetted image and vocals played their part. Well, she can't just follow Wally around on this tour, considering she now has her own album to promote! We were very spoilt at Splendour and the Opera House!

Merging the end into the crowd favourite Heart's A Mess, which was disarmingly strong as always, before finishing the set with the beautiful and moving Bronte. An encore of Learnalilgivinanlovin finished the evening, in another chapter of Gotye's music masterpieces and treat for live crowds.