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Alex Lahey + The Football Club + Rory J Dawson @ The Brightside 26/05/17 (Live Review)

We live in a world where a musician’s success is defined by the magnitude of their YouTube hits, their arena spactaculars, and their Twitter follower count. We also live in a world where we place musicians on broad pedestals we call stages and assign them a weirdly detached responsibility over their fanbase— one needs only think of Ariana Grande’s response to the Manchester attack a mere week ago. As I rocked up to Brisbane’s church-cum-entertainment venue The Brightside last Friday night for Alex Lahey’s Wes Anderson tour, I was pondering the absurdity of this unequal relationship between consumer and producer, fan and fan-focus. They’re people too, right?

 

I catch myself in hypocrisy when Alex Lahey casually wanders out of the church doors and rounds the corner towards the bar, and I’m staring with nary a witty word to say should our eyes have met. She’s shorter than I expected, I think… but I’m hardly going to say that to an international headliner, am I?

 

Once I was done feeling stupid, I realised it was going to be that sort of gig, one that feels more like a party than a performance. Despite the three-foot jump between stage and sticky floor, the musicians were as much a part of the having fun with friends as they were with providing it.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong, all three acts put on one hell of a show. Lahey and her supports, Rory J Dawson and The Football Club, played sets worthy of much bigger and brighter arenas than a small hollowed-out chapel. But throughout the night I found myself thinking how different it would feel if these acts were to play Swift- or Sheeran-esque arena spectaculars. For one, I probably wouldn’t have found myself chatting to The Football Club from across the merch table before the show had even started, glancing to the bar to see a sign that reads “this venue is a safe space for all who identify as gay, lesbian, queer, trans…” etc. God knows a safe space to engage with music (and musicians) is what the world needs right now.

 

I settled against a banister in the hollowed, hallowed hall as Rory J Dawson took the stage. As he opened his set with an octave jump into soaring falsetto, it became apparent that Dawson didn’t score a gig supporting Alex Lahey by accident. Between the cardigan, the tied-back hair, and the half-scale guitar, Dawson carried enough folky vibe with him to scare Bon Iver, but it’s not his image that matters. A Brisbane local, Dawson boasts tremendous vocal and instrumental talent. While most of the time he was flanked by piano and auxiliary vocals, I most enjoyed Dawson’s set when it was just him swaying in and out of limelight behind his tiny guitar. I walked in that night not even knowing his name, but if the world is at all fair, with time and confidence, Rory J Dawson could grow into one whose name is on every indie aficionado’s lips. Maybe Bon Iver should be scared.

Dawson tagged out with The Football Club, and not five minutes later I spotted him on the dancefloor surrounded by a proud group of baby boomers (no doubt his family). ‘That sort of a gig’, indeed, proved further by The Football Club’s unique (and frankly refreshing) approach to pre-performance. The queer folk-punk assembly from Footscray chatted intermittently with the crowd while soundchecking, an attitude unchanged from their merch table shenanigans, an attitude that remained throughout their set. If DIY punk were personified, it would be these four. Their confident, yet self-deprecating and sweet energy transcended the soundcheck into a rock-solid setlist and engaging, natural banter between songs. The four showed great potential, having obviously not quite yet grown into their musical bones (lead singer Ruby kept asking for the time, to know how long they could let the set run for), but the performance was polished and pulsating with energy, and each member showed a passion for their part in it. The Football Club’s close-to-home lyricism and guitar-heavy punk edge gives them an obvious home in live performance, and they capitalised on their unique vibe that evening. New kids on the block though they may be, The Football Club show tremendous promise— in an endearing, scrappy underdog kind of way.

As the night wore on and the crowd waited what felt like an eon for Alex Lahey to appear, the masses passed the time by grooving to whatever music came over the speakers. It’s not what they were here for, but from my vantage point on the upper floor, it seemed the dancefloor masses were having as good a time belting to Powderfinger as they were to the live stuff. Not to take away from any of the three gifted acts that performed that night, but it seemed to be much more than directing our focus to that one person at the centre of the stage. The three acts that night were all Australian, all millennial, and all musically living the same reality— choosing between smashed avo and a mortgage, campaigning over bathroom use, and being ridiculed for all of it. Yet here we were, all the same, singing to what Lahey herself termed an “Australian anthem” of simpler days. This, right here, I thought, this is what music should do— not create idols out of individuals, but loving communities out of common taste.

 

When Lahey finally appeared, she apologised for interrupting the sing-a-long (as if she wasn’t what most people came to see) and jested at playing “the Powderfinger covers you came for”. I’m personally glad that she stuck to tracks from her EP, B-Grade University, and her upcoming album. Wait, hold on, a new album? I was surprised, but given what Lahey offered as an aperitif of the album that night, I was also over the moon.

Alex Lahey live cranks some volume and some charm on top of her releases, which on their own carry wry virtue in the clever, yet uncomplicated lyrics and catchy hooks. The woman knows how to move a guitar around, too— her pearl white Stratocaster was as much a character on that stage as any of Lahey’s “buddies”, the uni-band-geek backing on auxiliary electric, bass, and drums. All of Alex Lahey’s tracks, new and old, prominently feature these elements in some way or another, and each performer surpassed the standard set in recording. Lahey’s new stuff was the best kind of more-of-the-same. Boasting the same offbeat titles as in the EP, the new album’s I Love You Like A Brother, I Haven’t Been Taking Care Of Myself, and Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder stuck in my ringing ears for long hours after the set, both lyrically and musically. It’s annoying, only knowing one line of an insanely catchy song… but I guess that means I’ll just have to wait for the album. Dammit, Lahey, you got me again.

 

Lahey ended her set with the most earworm-y of all her tracks, 2016 Triple J Hottest 100 shortlister You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me. Hands went up, heads were set a-banging, and what was simply a boppy sing-a-long song in recording became a proper live banger. Lahey plays the final chord, takes off the guitar strap, and friggin’ throws the beautiful instrument towards the sound guy (who thankfully catches it), then flicks her pick into the crowd and walks off like she doesn’t even know how cool she just looked.

 

Thank God she did an encore. I don’t know if I could have left if that was the last moment of the show. Lahey resumed the stage, freshly-cracked beer in hand, and slung the Stratocaster back over her shoulder, launching into the cover of Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn she had played on Triple J’s Like A Version only a week prior. This was the sort of moment that would have lost its magic in the recording studio— Lahey’s take on the legendary track was faithful, but still it sounded new and different and her. The whole room knew that song, and Lahey played to that, taking her solo riffs standing on top of a foldback, stretching the Stratocaster’s neck upwards towards whoever had blessed her with such talent and presence. It was world stage stuff in an Aussie indie setting. It was home, it was real, and I was proud of the Australian music scene that night.

 

Three dorky, yet downright talented millennial acts hosted a party at the Brightside that night, and everyone was welcome and taken care of. In the words of Alex Lahey herself, we should “always support local music”, because music is a two-way street. Without hometown heroes like Rory J Dawson, The Football Club, and Alex Lahey, the Australian music scene would be significantly poorer and lonelier, and we as listeners would be poorer and lonelier too.

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