Project Description

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Aurora.

AURORA
+ Odd Luke
+ Hannah Brewer
@ Fortitude Music Hall,
Brisbane,
13th February 2025
(Live Review)

Review and photos by Alec Smart (@alecsmart_fotos)

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Diminutive Norwegian music talent Aurora Aksnes (known simply by her first name), performed two concerts at Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall during her 2025 international tour, What Happened To The Earth? Part 4. The 28-year-old ‘alt-pop’ phenomenon is promoting her fifth studio album What Happened To The Heart?

The tour – 80 shows in 78 cities – included six concerts in four Australian cities (plus a Tasmanian music festival), climaxing around Valentine’s Day, 13-14 February, in Brisbane.

Support across Australia came from Scottish artist Odd Luke, a soul-singing Glaswegian, who was accompanied by a bassist and drummer; and the show’s opener, Hannah Brewer, an aspiring solo artist from Sydney’s inner-west.

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Hannah Brewer

Hannah Brewer, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Hannah Brewer has been writing and recording songs for several years. However, now that the 23-year-old’s star is on the ascent – opening for Aurora and performing Australia-wide before her legion of fans is pretty amazing exposure – she’s honed her craft and has a strong set of original material.

Performing solo accompanied by backing tracks, onstage Hannah alternates acoustic guitar and keyboards and sings across several vocal registers, sometimes very high.

According to TripleJ Unearthed, Hannah was raised in a family of classical musicians and also learned to play French horn and trumpet.

In testament to her appeal, the venue filled and reached capacity before the end of her performance, with the curious crowd swarming in to the Fortitude Music Hall main arena to investigate the night’s opener.

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Hannah Brewer

Hannah Brewer, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Hannah sings about quirky topics, personal observations and life experiences. These include: leaving home to start life as an independent young adult, then having to return because she ran out of money; her new song Bait, which she revealed was a metaphor, because she hasn’t actually been fishing; and another new song, Dollar Shop Souvenir, which she explained described “someone with an Oedipus Complex.”

She finished her set with the amusing Rumspringa, about abandoning a creepy boyfriend and joining the Amish people to live a life of dancing and innocence. Rumspringa, incidentally, is adapted from an old German word, herumspringen, which translates as ‘run and jump around’ and refers to the late teenage years when youths in Amish communities are given licence to participate in adolescent hijinks that might otherwise be discouraged in older or younger people.

You can see Hannah’s whimsical music video for the song here.

You can hear Hannah’s current set of songs, including those from her 2023 six-track EP Child Of Divorce and new song Headspins here, or sample them on Spotify here.

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Hannah Brewer

Hannah Brewer, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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If you hunt online, you can find Hannah’s earlier material recorded under her surname Brewer, such as the somewhat ethereal Embrace (released 2020 and co-written with Lanks), listen here on Spotify; the poppier Sleepwalk, co-written with Bajillionaire and released under the moniker Suicide Sheep, found here on YouTube; plus a few tracks she collaboratively wrote here.

She’s apparently parked her Brewer persona, because most of the other musical links are now inactive.

However, you can find an interesting collections of videos of her demo songs – recorded in her room accompanied by keyboards or acoustic guitar – plus some amusing backstage concert footage and assorted downtime antics under the name Hanz Brewer here on TikTok.

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Odd Luke

Odd Luke, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Odd Luke is not actually the onstage Scottish singer’s nickname, but the nom-de-guerre of songwriter and session guitarist Andy Black. He has performed with a number of artists, most notably fellow Scotsman Lewis Capaldi, the Tourettes Syndrome-affected 2020 Brit Award winner for Best New Artist.

(You can see Andy live onstage with Lewis in a Dec 2022 BBC Radio 2 concert here).

EQ Music website describes ‘emerging’ artist Odd Luke / Andy Black’s music as “seamlessly blending pop, soul, and R&B with irresistibly danceable beats.” He only very recently released his debut EP in November 2024, a four-track titled Surface Tension, which can be sampled or downloaded here.

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Odd Luke

Odd Luke, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Onstage, the bearded Briton is quite static, although the tempo of his 80s-inspired, funk-meets-pop went up a few notches from Hannah’s slower numbers. Lots of the lyrics featured the F-word, and tend to focus on dealing with life’s disappointments.

The pale-skinned Jock (English slang for a Scot, not American slang for a sports obsessive) joked that he was so fair under the harsh Queensland sun that he coated himself with factor 50 sunburn cream onstage in case even the stage lights scorched him.

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Odd Luke

Odd Luke, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Odd Luke’s stand-out track was the synth-pop number Found Life, which, on the aforementioned EP was produced by Norwegian Magnus Skylstad, percussionist-drummer in Aurora’s band who has co-written 11 of her songs.

Sylstad, with his collaborator Odd Martin (another ‘Odd’!), is renowned for his production work on Aurora’s music – which is likely how Andy Black came to Aurora’s attention as choice for main support artist for this tour.

See the Found Life music video here.

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Aurora appeals to a broad spectrum of people of all ages. The venue was packed with a capacity crowd, albeit on a 70-30 female-male ratio. Aurora herself later commented that she drove past the venue and was surprised by the size of the queues, and was tempted to beep her car horn in greeting.

This reviewer naively expected to find a predominantly young audience in fairy dresses and sparkles, like a Taylor Swift concert (there were a few) but there was also a fair sprinkling of senior citizens and those with physical challenges. Fortitude Music Hall is a wheelchair-friendly venue with a designated zone by the side of the stage.

Keen eyed reviewer-photographer Bec Harbour of Live Wire Music Media spotted an elderly hippy woman who was intercepted at the door carrying a bag of marijuana which she claimed was intended for the Norwegian superstar. The hippy insisted Aurora was expecting the leafy present, but security refused her entrance and she departed into the night in a puff of smoke.

There were a lot of couples, including several uncomfortable-looking men bringing their partner on a date night, which Bec reminded me was attributable to the romance of Valentine’s Day.

Aurora does attract a lot of young female fans, many of whom were likely to have been introduced to her via the 2019 Walt Disney film Frozen 2, for which she co-wrote the song Into the Unknown (nominated for Best Song category at the 2020 Academy Awards). She also voiced the mysterious spirit character in the film.

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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As the stage was bathed in blue light, Aurora’s 4-piece band – drummer Magnus, guitarist Fredrik, keyboard-vocalist Amelie and vocalist-percussion Thea – appeared. As Aurora’s song Goddess Of Dusk played, they took their positions on the margins as the face of the Norwegian songstress appeared on a giant screen behind, smiling and waving at the rapt crowd.

Next moment, the elfin-like performer with the characteristic blonde ‘Viking’ bob wandered onstage, barefoot and resplendent in a floor-length white gown.

Rhythmic drumming began and Aurora launched into her song Churchyard, arms outstretched, long triangular sleeve tassels hanging down, and the stage light transitioned to bright pink. Soon, the screen image switched to a large crescent moon, upon which Aurora’s two eyes flickered back and forth.

Thereafter, we were locked into a roller-coaster ride of extraordinary energy and treated to a master class in captivating songcraft and engaging performance. Aurora’s exuberance and enthusiasm increased as the night lengthened, despite the relative humidity (Aurora commented several times on sweating prolifically), and stewards handed several pallet-loads of bottled water to the crowd.

Aurora dedicated her second song, All Is Soft Inside, to those who were ‘emotionally expressive’, then afterwards she spent several minutes charming the audience with a summary of her eclectic day. This included visiting a store called “wool…”, which most people confirmed aloud was Woolworths, purchasing foodstuffs and pondering about long phallic-shaped grapes, and enjoying a picnic near Brisbane River.

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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After the informal chatter, during which she admitted self-deprecatingly that she was something of a scatty hippy with thoughts that danced illogically, she sang Through The Eyes Of A Child accompanied by the dextrous picking of Fredrik Svabø on acoustic guitar.

Her music is varied, enchanting, assimilating folk, synth-pop, classical, occasional flashes of techno and what’s termed electro-pop, in a captivating cocktail – sometimes throughout the same composition.

At times she’d pause between songs to outline some of her pet peeves and wishes for the world, including draping herself in a LGBTQ rainbow flag expressing support for the trans community, describing campaigners as ‘warriors’.

During her runaway hit, Runaway, the audience favourite (even this reviewer sang along!) she dedicated it to “the children of Palestine and Gaza, Ukraine, Congo and Syria.”

Other crowd favourites that triggered dancing and group singing were Queendom, the catchy chorus, ‘til queendom come’ was like a feminist call to arms!; Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) preceded by voicing her concerns about the advance of Trump and the far-right; The Seed – which she dedicated to the Indigenous people of the world, ‘when the last tree has fallen and the rivers are poisoned, you can’t eat money!’; and the ever-popular Running With The Wolves – ‘I’m running with the wolves, I’m running with the wooooooolves!’

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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She finished her set on a high – another reviewer described her as a ‘whirling Dervish’, which was exactly my impression – dancing in circles and leaps as she coursed through Giving In To The Love.

And of course, the audience demanded more, and she returned to a stage bathed in red light and launched into Cure For Me – ‘I run from the liars, the fuel on the fire I know I created myself…’, followed by Some Type Of Skin, her energy relentless. She removed her gown top, remarking how sweat-drenched she was, and the lusty lemons in the crowd urged her to continue disrobing.

Introducing the last song of the night, “before we all fuck off and go home!”, she explained her creative process, which was as typically scatty as her earlier musings.

“My brain tells the heart to write the lyrics. She knows! … The brain and the heart know each other, but not too well… I write songs about being open, but people think I’m really wise!… This feeling floats around, until maybe you vomit!”

The grand finale, Invisible Wounds, began with her playing a flourish on her red keyboards – the only time she played an instrument. Afterwards, bowing with the band, she flashed ‘devil’s horns’ hand symbols, associated with heavy metal musicians, with both hands before exiting.

Bless her, she‘s mesmerising, passionate, erratic and a genuine genius, and after over an hour in her captivating company you feel spellbound. Fabulous!

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Aurora
Set List

Churchyard
All Is Soft Inside
Through the Eyes of a Child [acoustic]
The River
Soulless Creatures
A Soul with No King
Queendom
Exist for Love
Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)
The Dark Dresses Lightly
Starvation
Runaway
The Seed
Running With the Wolves
Giving In to the Love

Encore:

Cure for Me
Some Type of Skin
Invisible Wounds [acoustic]

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Check out Alec Smart’s (@alecsmart_fotos) full gallery of this event HERE

Check out Adrian Thomson’s (@_awii_) full gallery of the Perth event (Fremantle Prison, 6th February) HERE

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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AURORA
WEBSITE – INSTAGRAM – FACEBOOK
TIKTOK – 
SPOTIFY – APPLE MUSIC
AMAZON MUSIC – YOUTUBE 


Follow ODD LUKE
Soundcloud  Instagram  Bandcamp  YouTube


Follow HANNAH BREWER
Instagram  Facebook  YouTube  Spotify  Soundcloud

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Aurora

Aurora, Fortitude Music Hall, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia. Photo: Alec Smart, Thursday 13 February 2025

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Press Release 12th December 2024 (below) HERE

Secret Sounds presents…

AURORA
What Happened To The Earth?
Part 4

Touring Australia February 2025
Fremantle | Sydney | Melbourne | Brisbane

Announces special guests
ODD LUKE and
Hannah Brewer (solo)

Remaining tickets selling fast!

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AURORA.


AMNPLIFY – DB

CLICK THE PIC TO VIEW THE NEWS