Project Description

ANGIE MCMAHON

@ Oxford Art Factory

(Live Review)

07/07/18

Reviewer: Georgia Dickinson

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The past nine months have been quite the rollercoaster for singer-songwriter Angie McMahon. She rose to popularity with her debut Slow Mover with millions of Spotify streams, features on national radio and scoring 33rd place in this year’s Hottest 100. Since then, she’s been announced on Splendour In The Grass, supported fellow Australians Angus & Julia Stone and has sold out her first show in the UK off the back of her second single. And with this hype that constantly surrounds McMahon, the line outside Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory had extremely high hopes and expectation of how this night was going to play out.

First on the stage was Georgia Mulligan with her backing band lingering behind her. Mulligan brought a laid-back attitude to the stage whilst playing melancholic indie folk to the punters filtering into the venue. She played a variety of songs like the upbeat Needed to her latest single The Dark, wooing over fans with wispy vocals and slow burning instrumentals that induce you to sway. Mulligan was a great way to kick off the light and had everyone buzzing for the next act.

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Scoring the main supporting slot for Angie McMahon was fellow Melbournians RAT!hammock, who had the crowd gravitating to the stage. Frontman Jackson Phelan is charming in the way he presents himself. He’s laid-back yet charismatic in the way he documents the band’s overnight journey from Melbourne to Sydney. However, Phelan’s true colours shine in the raw emotion him and his bandmates bring to their set. Songs like Mary The Chair and Power throw away the crowd’s inhibitions and by the time the band finishes their finale in Falls, Oxford Art Factory is filled to the brim with people discovering their new favourite band.

Angie McMahon is as casual as they come when she strolls onto the stage, guitar in hand as starts off with the heartbreaking ballad Slow. McMahon’s voice is delicate, but as the lyrics of a heartbreak cry through the venue, the song leaves everyone frozen in time. The three and a half minute introduction is met with a loud applause before Angie follows it with Standout, “a sad song” dedicated to her manager “because she likes it”.

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McMahon is calm and collected as she confesses her mistakes to the crowd. After the soothing Keeping Time, she explains how she accidentally swapped her verses around. She also confesses that song comes out in a few weeks and that no one could tell the difference. McMahon’s honesty and humility is one of many reasons that everyone in the room is in love with her and only adds to the authenticity of her music as fades into her recent single Missing Me and the slow-burning Push.

“All of these songs are gonna be on my album, which is not yet done” McMahon expresses as her backing band leave the stage to showcase McMahon’s soft and wistful solo skills with Whistle Song and Mood Song. And with McMahon’s beautiful vocals on display, just about every person is under her spell as the crowd stands scattered with the stage lights.

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As her band returns to the stage, McMahon preaches about gender equality with a self-acclaimed “angry song with positive message” called And I Am A Woman. And I Am A Woman is so strong in its message that the audience is clinging onto McMahon’s hypnotic presence. The audience clings onto every word for Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs and dance along to the feel-good Pasta. And by the time the opening guitar of Slow Mover begins, fans can’t help but to scream the lyrics back at McMahon. It’s a bittersweet farewell to Angie McMahon’s time on stage and the beginning of longing in fans.

Angie McMahon has this essence about her that makes you want to shut up and listen. Her strong vocals and melancholic guitar tones bring forward an emotional rollercoaster of love, humanism and confidence. McMahon is a powerhouse act and that’s no doubt that she is becoming ones of the biggest figures in the Australian music industry because of it. Angie McMahon is the strong female icon that the world needs right now, and the world is definitely not prepared for what McMahon has up her sleeve.

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AMNPLIFY – GD