Lisa Mitchell @ Capitol, Perth(12.09.09)

Tue 15th Sep, 2009 in Gig Reviews

They say a person is usually remembered by their first accomplishment and this is the same in the case of Lisa Mitchell. Yes, Australian Idol had to have a mention. But years have passed since we’ve seen her on that commercial beast of a glorified karaoke contest and she proves to us all that she was one of the lucky ones to have left unscathed, stronger and luckily not the winner (where is Casey Donovan anyway?) With a number of sold out shows across the country, Perth was not going to be an exception with tickets for her Wonder tour selling out days before the show.

Firing up the stage very early on in the night were young pop-alt-rock band The Morning Night playing to a half empty room (are people still trying to get used to the idea of bands starting at 7.45?). While we can probably say they were good enough to be supporting Lisa Mitchell on tour, they were a bit stale to watch on stage. This was perhaps most evident by the small crowd avoiding the front of the stage like it was the plague – invisible D-barrier style. They seemed to lack the stage charisma needed to make their music exciting, as if watching them live wouldn’t invoke any more emotion than if they’d just walked on stage and pressed play on a CD player.

As uninspired as the performance side was, the music itself was actually pretty honest and appealing. Their style and chord progressions were reminiscent of early Youth Group so they could be onto something and with a bit of tweaking they could be set to do great things.

Oh Mercy was up next and showcased most of their work from their recent full-length release Privileged Woes. While it was all well and good to just stand back and nod along to their catchy, mellowed out pop-rock, they didn’t seem to offer enough variety in their style to hold the attention of everyone. As if they had a recipe for how they wrote their songs, the structure and body of the songs rarely wavered, so the end result is that it is very likely that every song is as good (or as bad) as the last because they are all almost identical. The result is that you either really liked them, or you were just waiting for them to finish, giving them a half-hearted obligatory applause.

At last, it was time for Lisa Mitchell to grace the stage to a room that was well and truly packed with bodies by then. Looking ever so spritely with a hop in her step, Mitchell shimmied onto the stage armed with kazoo and bells leading straight into Heroine. Just a few minutes in and it was already evident that the petite singer was a natural performer displaying no sign of nerves without ever escaping modesty.

The crowd was surprisingly quiet most of the night offering their full attention to Mitchell, highlights being the love song Valium singing the words “oh I’ve been waiting…” with such conviction and honesty and a solo cover of Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits.

Twelve songs into the set and Mitchell says the next song will be Coin Laundry to a crowd that went crazy with excitement for the first time all night. You couldn’t help but think people had really come just to see that one song. But before she began she pleaded with the audience to not throw dollar coins at her, or at least not to aim for her face after an unfortunate accident resulting in Mitchell getting coined in the eye. Oh, the price to pay for having the lyrics “do you have a dollar for me?”

A brief disappearance from the stage and she was back on for the encore, showing off more of her many talents taking to the keyboard for Love Letter and then back behind a guitar for the infectiously catchy Neapolitan Dreams that had the whole crowd singing along in united delight.