Pages

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Bertie and Gotye

Fresh off receiving Grammy nominations during the week, Gotye returned home to Melbourne for an amazing show.  With Bertie Blackman supporting, I wasn't sure which set I was most excited for in the lead up all week, being the authors of my favourite albums for 2011 and 2012.

Opening with the first track from Pope Innocent X, Tremors gave us the correct impressive that she was going to deleiver a powerful selection of thus awesome album.  Boy and Mercy Killer were punchy and brave, and two of my other favourite tracks from the album featured, being the sexy Growl Howl and Maps.

Bertie moved from drums, to keys, to guitar, she was powerful and chatted to the building crowd as the light faded outside of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.  She dedicated Shadow Chaser to her Dad, and her new release Stella was brought to life.  I love seeing an album transported live like this.


Gotye and his 10 piece band landed on stage, and opened with 2 tracks from earlier albums, The Only Way and then What Do You Want? It felt like a homecoming right there, playing the tracks for people who have watched his career from the much smaller shows.

Mary and I were very close, being in the front section, seats second row from the stage.  It afforded a great view of the energetic Gotye, bouncing from the front and centre mic, to the drum kit at the back, to the samples to the side.  He appeared so happy to be playing to the home crowd, and seriously loving what he was doing up on stage.  The detail he puts together in terms of the sounds on stage is just incredible.

A favourite of mine, Easy Way Out, was next, before the ode to the telcos in Thanks For Your Time.  He has his animated visuals running for various tracks, on the big screens around the venue, and at the back of stage, with Smoke And Mirrors being very mesmorising.

State Of The Art was a bit of fun, with a big and little cotillion brought out on stage, one of them reportedly from Gotye's own living room, and the organ specialist himself from Adelaide, Barry Morgan.  All a bit of silliness, Barry instructed Gotye through the art of the sound maker, and the message was delivered with the samples guy echoing the sounds of the great beast. Such a great song!



Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You followed, and then a track that Gotye introduced as one he worked so hard on and then ended up discarding from the album list, Dig Your Own Hole.

Talking about The Thin Green Line before giving us Eyes Wide Open and then Giving Me A Chance, which the whole crowd sang along to.

The quieter Bronte had the lower sections silent, whilst we could hear much noise from the grass crowd - which Gotye called them on at the end of the song - for such a moving number, the girl next to me was sobbing through it.  So powerful and sad.

Then, the song that has been inescapable for the last 18 months, Somebody That I Used To Know was amazing, with Bertie Blackman returning to stage for the Kimbra part of the track, giving it her own edginess.

Gotye set up the crowd parts for Save Me, before giving us Heart's A Mess - heart-stoppingly good. And back to the detail, he even included the single chime intermittently.

Encore started with a rousting Seven Hours With A Backseat Driver, before Gotye invited us to fill the little section in front of the stage to dance.  I Feel Better, and then Learnalilgivinanlovin finished the night in infectious joy and fun.

The show fitting the man who is king of Australian music right now after bagging four ARIAs and receiving three Grammy nominations. He seemed so happy to be home, and really loving his work right now.

No comments:

Post a Comment