Angie Hart, Andrew Morris @The Zoo, 13/10/2007

Mon 15th Oct, 2007 in Gig Reviews

As much as live music is anchored in technicalities – song structures, arrangements, mixing and effects – the true measure of a performance is how well the artist connects emotionally with the punters.

When it succeeds – and, boy, does Angie Hart succeed tonight – it’s beautiful. The frankness and emotional candour thoroughly disarms the listener. It’s like being the special guest – the only guest – at an intimate performance for one.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Early on Andrew Morris treats the Zoo to his gentle alt-country stylings. He and his band focus heavily on latest effort Union Bars, and it’s all to the good. He’s all smiles, and the crowd is warmly appreciative of the slow-tempo twang he fills the room with. Here You Are, There You Go is one of the best, but the jangly acoustic, bright lyrics and quirky kazoo solos of Everybody Knows also garners generous applause.

The Zoo, it must be said, isn’t that full. Still, that’s ok: you just know the ones who aren’t here would inevitably request Accidentally Kelly Street from Angie Hart later on and probably have talked over the top of Morris’s set into the bargain.

When Hart finally arrives to daintily parcel out slices of her life in a soul-baring one-hour (and a little more) set, I feel like I’m getting to know Hart blue-inked whale tats and all.

She sings about her “kindred spirits in a glass” – the bloody marys, the screwdrivers, the cocksuckers – on My Year of Drinking, confides how she “got street smarts playing dumb” and “got real serious about having fun” on Sand, but, with Kiwi, reassures that she’s a grounded bird. “If I don’t set my sights too high I can fly,” she tells us with confidence.

Her characteristic vocal lilt may have softened a touch from her Frente! days, but it’s still able to melt a heart in an instant. And whether it’s just the delicate guitar of Dan Luscombe or the full band behind her dreamy, velvet voice, Hart’s prowess as a songwriter and performer is captivating.

Yet such vivid intimacy is as deceptive as it is beautiful. In the end, it’s a one-way conversation. As we all sing along to Bizarre Love Triangle, wonder at the anguish in Cold Heart Killer and the show winds to conclusion, a cold realisation awaits.

As much as we feel we’re getting to know Angie Hart, and revealing as her music is, she cannot know us all individually in return. And that makes tonight a bittersweet thing.