Support was provided by the amazonian Dallas Frasca. Her voice is so deep and beefy that she can effortlessly move from soulful melodies to metal growls which she threw in at the end of a phrase here and there. The set was full of vocal gymnastics to show off the full scope of her voice throughout her blues and rootsy songs with repetitive lyrics – some dark some more motivational (i.e. the first song entitled, you guessed it, Motivation and the last song about not judging by appearances, Don’t Let No-One Bring You Down). Accompanying this was her finger picking guitar and stomp box she was forcefully stamping throughout, which only added to her intimidating persona. With one song dedicated to her stalker, who was quite possibly in the audience, one wonders who might be deluded enough to think they can take this lady on. Her and dobro-play Jeff Curran had obvious musical chemistry with each playing off each other as if to say “how about that, now what are you gonna do?”
With such an awesome view sitting up on the grassy steps of the Belvoir, we could see Xavier Rudd milling about side of stage and knew it was time for the magic to begin. First of all, Albert, an indigenous young man from the Kimberley, made a speech regarding plans being made to dig up his land and encouraged us to think of the cause. Once Albert had moved into the crowd, Rudd came and took his place behind his trademark one-man-band-stand, although tonight it was to be a two-man show. Dave Tolley joined Rudd onstage for a majority of the performance, playing drums exceptionally well allowing Rudd to focus mainly on guitar, didgeridoo, harmonica and chimes.
Rudd began playing didgeridoo (3 of them) with Tolley drumming along. The jamming was darker, more psychedelic than we’ve heard him before (as per his new album Dark Shades of Blue). This provided an introduction to the new sound Rudd inhabits which at first is quite unexpected from his previous more positive offerings. Tolley’s drumming gave a rock edge throughout the set and was faultless throughout the many rhythmic changes. The title track to the new album exemplified this new sound with Rudd on electric guitar playing more metal chugging riffs through the verse then back to roots twangs through the chorus.
The crowd were captivated by the atmospheric beginning, but throughout the set they went back to being quite chatty, distractingly so, to the point where when Rudd announced they were recording a song he had to spend a fair amount of time shh-ing the audience. This crowd were of varying age from Nannas to young families and a fair few twenty/thirty somethings in between. Such a wide variety of fans could be an indication of the universality of Xavier Rudd’s music and perhaps the universality of the messages or concerns he expresses in his lyrics.
Politics and activism which Rudd has become known for were certainly on display, including comments about the atrocities occurring in remote communities and the stolen generations and how “even Peter Garrett lay down”; talk of how Bush and Howard are no longer with us and lyrics like “respect the land, don’t fucking dig it up”. There was this angry sort of energy throughout the set which could supposedly turn off less politically focused people. There was the impressive musicianship to keep them interested, although Rudd was focusing more on guitar and experimenting with his voice, so was only at his bandstand intermittently. Some more didgeridoo would have been nice as it’s just so rare to see onstage in general, and unique to Rudd. The new direction of sound does incorporate the didgeridoo but tonight it wasn’t the main attraction.
Favourite Messages was there in the middle, and toward the end Rudd and Tolley started in on Superstition by Stevie Wonder which morphed into Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World. The encore was more joyous as it included Let Me Be with an aboriginal man in traditional dress doing traditional dance including animal imitations of an emu and snake and others. Then people with t-shirts came on stage to leave a lasting message of: S, T, A, N, D, U, P, the, B, U, R, R, U, P. Rudd went to put on his t-shirt (after putting it on the wrong way) to be the “for” in the middle, again indicating his support for the cause to save the Burrup Peninsula in the Kimberley from having ancient rock art destroyed for mining purposes. He recited a poem to end the night that was as much about sending a message for change as the music.
to listen to their music now on 
