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Ladyhawke’s meteoric rise has been swift. Pip Brown, like so many of her contemporaries, has refused to forge against the current of the seemingly invincible 80’s revivalist zeitgeist, proving just how deep the well apparently is. The ghost of Stevie Nicks flows right through her neon caterwauls and Pip makes no effort to disguise her affection for her influence. With Sydney group The Swiss joining her tour, ANU hosted her for the night on Wednesday to the rapture of her fans.

Supporting Ladyhawke is Sydney Modular label-mates The Swiss. Despite being a self proclaimed disco outfit their stage persona was almost militant. Sid’s base did its job, asserting its masculinity while managing to avoid any sort of complexity and depth. Disco needs curves. It needs to strut, not march. Bummer, guys. Luke’s synths wandered around, blasting away on cue with lasers and rogue synth stabs. It added texture but didn’t entirely shake loose the very real feeling that we’d heard it all before but better. The sense of déjà vu crystallised the second they attempted a rather cheeky cover of Robot Rock, effectively evaporating the last vestiges of their creative credibility by reminding us not only that simplicity and directness are not necessarily divorced from genius, but also just how far these guys are off the mark. Despite their shortcomings as an artistic entity, The Swiss was nevertheless visceral and delivered a rousing set of (very) basic dance tunes.

Ladyhawke meandered on with little ceremony and threw down with Magic. It sounded ok, hitting the right angles etc. Actually, in all honesty this review is a moot point – the crowd was onboard from the start. Despite playing a very polished yet uninspiring set, despite the disappointingly flat rendition of Paris is Burning (which should be a joyfully aloof exercise in velvet anarchy), despite the almost paint by numbers set list (all the singles were covered, no exceptions or surprises) the crowd completely ate it up. In fact, I think I broke out in an empathetic sweat just by standing amid such intense fandom.

The band absorbed the energy through osmosis, so by the end I think even they were surprised at the response. The encore consisted of a cute medley of Patti Smith, Split Enz and Delirium. Regardless of the fact that the tour thus far seems to consist of carbon copy shows the whole band legitimately got a kick out of Canberra, and that can only mean that Canberra got the best of them.

It’s well known by now that Modular darling Pip Brown is an aspergers statistic. It would be entirely too conceited to link the disorder’s major characteristics with her performance as a musician, but the patterns that emerge through her live act raise attractive questions. She clings to her mike like it was a life raft and buries her (very pretty) face behind her fringe; she sways in tight circles and commands only the space immediately around her, refusing to exploit the rest of the stage. If this is all symptomatic of her condition, her success is both admirable and commendable. If it’s simply a coincidence then it’s odd that she doesn’t totally bust out and languish in the attention more like so many of her contemporaries (I’m looking at you Peaches).

Even after such a stirring response, it’s hard to see her popularity surviving beyond the current Ray Ban trend, which is sad: there’s definitely talent and consistency there. It’s just lacking the depth that a legacy artist needs, and turning everything up to 11 on a stage doesn’t drown out the alarm bells in the mediocrity department. Good. Not great.

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