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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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BELINDA CARLISLE
+ Joan And The Giants
@ Enmore Theatre,
Newtown, Sydney,
29th September 2024
(Live Review)

Review and photos by Alec Smart (@alecsmart_fotos)

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Belinda Carlisle, globally successful American popstar and former singer of pioneering female rock band The Go-Gos, performed two sold-out concerts on successive nights at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown, Sydney.

The concerts, on 29-30 September, were part of her Decades Tour, celebrating 35 years of her solo music career and featuring hits from six of her eight studio albums plus a track from her new EP.

(Material from Belinda’s most recent albums, Voila and Wilder Shores, featuring chansons sung in French and Sikh chants spoken in Punjabi, respectively, were not performed.)

The Decades Tour Australian appearances, originally scheduled for February 2022, were thrice postponed – firstly to March 2023, then November 2023 – due to international restrictions on socialising imposed by the worldwide Covid pandemic.

Hitching her sparkling silver skirt to reveal her left leg, Belinda explained that the third postponement from November last year was attributable to a severe knee injury that required major surgery.

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Joan & The Giants, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Main support band on Belinda’s nationwide tour was West Australian, female-fronted, Indie-rock quartet Joan & The Giants, whose star is in the ascendancy. They’ve garnered a load of awards since their formation five years ago, and secured stadium supports to Pink and Tones And I when they performed in Perth earlier this year.

On stage Joan & The Giants are musically adept, with singer Grace (no, she’s not called Joan!) chatty and confident.

They’re not your average indie-pop band from the University of Angst. According to their online bio, “the band began with Grace Newton-Wordsworth and Aaron Birch, who formed Joan & The Giants in 2019. Coming together from different backgrounds; Aaron, a Nyul Nyul man from a remote community in the Kimberley and front-woman Gracie from an organic farm down South of WA. The pair are now based in Perth with band members Riley Sutton and Liam Olsen…”

Their music ranges from light, poppy melodies to more strident tones, interspersed with ethereal keyboard-driven pieces. Grace has a graceful voice, capable of ascending effortlessly to high notes. At Enmore she alternated playing keyboards and guitar while her three bandmates provided unwavering support to her euphonious singing.

The band have four song collections (albums/EPs) available to preview or download here.

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Joan & The Giants, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Belinda Carlisle strolled onto the Enmore Theatre 2-tier stage to rapturous applause after her five-piece backing band settled in position. They launched into We Want the Same Thing, from her 1989 album Runaway Horses.

This was followed by Do You Feel Like I Feel, from her 1991 album Live Your Life Be Free.

These two songs, like many of Belinda’s better-known songs, were written by Rick Nowells and Ellen Shipley. The duo wrote the lion’s share of Belinda’s creative output, including 7 of the 19 performed tonight at Enmore Theatre: Circle in the Sand, Heaven is a Place on Earth, In Too Deep, La Luna, Leave A Light On, Live Your Life be Free, Runaway Horses and Vision of You.

Rick Nowells, a producer and professional songwriter, has also written for Madonna, Dido and Lana Del Rey, among others.

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Other songs in Belinda’s repertoire tonight included the Dianne Warren-penned I Get Weak and Big Big Love. The latter was released on the Kismet EP by Belinda last year in May 2023, 27 years since her most recent English language pop record.

Belinda told the Enmore Theatre crowd the new collaboration with Dianne, which has drawn praise, came about after a chance encounter between her son James and Dianne in a café. (Read Amnpify’s review of the EP here.)

Dianne Warren is renowned for composing many hit songs, including If I Could Turn Back Time (Cher) and I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (Aerosmith).

Dianne has also written for Taylor Swift, Michael Bolton, and Celine Dion, among others.

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Belinda played two Go-Gos’ songs, Our Lips Are Sealed (the title later adapted for her 2010 autobiography, Lips Unsealed) and the infectious dance number, We Got The Beat.

The inclusion of the two Go-Gos’ songs was the personal highlight of this reviewer, who’s been a fan of the band since their inception.

Belinda also performed Mad About You, the first single from her 1986 self-titled debut album, Belinda, one of several songs on that album that were originally written for The Go-Go’s before the band broke up the previous year. It was composed by Paula Jean Brown (who joined The Go-Go’s as bass guitarist following guitarist Jane Wiedlin’s departure in Oct 1984 necessitating Kathy Valentine’s switch to guitar).

In a departure from performing her best-selling material, Belinda also sang two lesser-known songs that weren’t released as singles.

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Valentine, from her 1989 album Runaway Horses, which Belinda revealed is her favourite album in her discography.

Should I Let You In, from her 1987 album, Heaven on Earth, a song that was co-written by her previous Go-Gos’ bandmate, Charlotte Caffey and 1970s Australian popstar Mark Holden.

Belinda’s concert at Enmore Theatre was straightforward – no costume changes, a solid band that complimented her well, and a five-colour light show. She made a bit of light conversation between the songs, but otherwise it was a polished performance that concluded with a 4-song encore. 

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Belinda’s History

Belinda, the eldest of seven children whose father, a petrol station attendant twenty years older than her mother, abandoned the family when she was five, has had a long and varied career. Thereafter she lived in poverty, her mother remarrying and having another four children. A teenage tearaway who immersed herself in the burgeoning Los Angeles punk scene of the late 1970s, by her own admission she dabbled in drugs and ran amuck.

In a June 2021 interview with The Guardian, she described her young self as a “nightmare”, admitting she enjoyed “hitchhiking, running away, dropping acid. But at the same time, I was a cheerleader… I was born a little bit of a rebel, and that was one of the reasons punk music appealed to me.”

Calling herself ‘Dottie Danger’, she also played drums with an early incarnation of the infamous Germs – whose singer Darby Crash later took his own life, as portrayed in the 2007 feature film What we do is Secret.

However, she never played live with the Germs (which also featured futured Nirvana/Foo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear) and instead left and in 1978 co-founded an all-girl melodic punk group. That group, with her friend singer-songwriter Jane Wiedlin, with whom she lived in a punk party house nicknamed ‘Disgraceland’, would break records and prove to be hugely influential on contemporary rock music.

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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“I lived in a punk rock commune for a couple of years with Jane, this derelict building in the bad part of Hollywood, and it was all bands and music,” Belinda told The Guardian. “And drugs, of course. There were about 50 of us who were the original, I guess, Hollywood punks. I’m so lucky to have experienced that.”

The band formed by Belinda and Jane was, of course, The Go-Gos, arguably the most successful all-female band in history, who finally called it a day in 2022 after being inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame the previous year.

After a couple of line-up changes, the five key members who consolidated into a creative unit in 1980 released their chart-topping debut album Beauty and the Beat the following year, full of sassy songs with catchy choruses. The quirky quintet endured through break-ups, drug habits, legal disputes, creative differences and (sometimes conflicting) side projects to record four best-selling studio albums, the last, God Bless the Go-Gos, in 2001.

Belinda launched her solo career in 1985 with her self-titled album, Belinda. The rest is herstory!

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Set List

(We Want) The Same Thing
Do You Feel Like I Feel?
Big Big Love
In Too Deep
Should I Let You In?
Circle In The Sand
I Get Weak
La Luna
Vision of You
Summer Rain
Valentine
Our Lips Are Sealed (The Go‐Go’s song)
Mad About You
Leave a Light On
Heaven Is a Place on Earth

Encore:

Runaway Horses
Big Scary Animal
We Got the Beat (The Go‐Go’s song)
Live Your Life Be Free

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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

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Belinda Carlisle, Enmore Theatre, Sydney. Photo: Alec Smart

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Follow BELINDA CARLISLE
Facebook – Instagram – Twitter
Youtube – Tik Tok

Follow THE GO-GOS
Website – Youtube

Follow JOAN & THE GIANTS
Website – Spotify – Apple Music
Soundcloud – Youtube – Facebook
Instagram – Triple J Unearthed – Bandcamp

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AMNPLIFY – DB