Georgia Fair, Daniel LeeKendall, Carry Nation @ TheToff in Town, Melbourne(13/07/11)

Wed 20th Jul, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It was only a matter of time before Bob Dylan played out over the sound system…
Perennial hipster living room The Toff played host to a veritable feast of summery guitar strumming to offset the wintry chill on Wednesday night, and with all the knitwear and lens-less eyewear in the room there was acoustic folk of varying quality both during and between sets.

First up was the impossibly sweet Carry Nation, whose short and sadly forgettable set suffered from the cursed tiny dimensions of the venue, allowing the various conversations around the room to overwhelm her brief stint on stage. Not even a surprise appearance by ‘attractive lady’ Lisa Mitchell as a stronger vocal foil for the second half of the performance did enough to really silence an inattentive crowd.

In a poncho-esque arrangement straight out of Woodstock, Carry makes for an interesting visage above the crowd’s and her singing is actually well worthy of the attention it doesn’t receive, possessing a building/cut-away lilt that the likes of Alanis Morissette and Dolores O’Reardon (of The Cranberries fame) have been relying on for decades. Unfortunately, while her music tries for Joan Baez, the softly-softly guitar strumming just doesn’t have the meat on its bones to support the emotive vocal and despite a more composed final stretch with Mitchell in tow, the set as a whole disappears timidly into the swirl of pseudo-political debate and vintage one-upmanship.

In stark contrast to the opening act, Daniel Lee Kendall has the tunes in his arsenal to hang a full set of music on, but lacks the strength of vocal to turn it into a truly successful performance. Where Nation’s voice demanded to be heard but her music wilted before the noisy chatter, DLK’s tunes bounce out of the speakers and around the room joyously while his singing sounds more like heavy lyrical breathing than anything else.

Luckily then, he has the tunes in the bag to overcome his vocal shortcomings. Not that the set is perfect by any means – much of the early stuff is disturbingly reminiscent of British whiner James Blunt (albeit minus the falsetto) – but there is a great number that has a raspingly declared refrain of ‘the lady’s on fire’ which recalls Jeff Buckley both in sound and in attitude and perhaps more tellingly, finally silences the room. Just in time as well, because the very next song is the irrepressibly poppy Lost In The Moment, which has been doing the rounds on Triple J of late and benefits from a more accepting atmosphere. The joint headliner made a few missteps throughout the night and his constant repeated use of the pronunciation ‘gee-tar’ quickly becomes jarring (artists beware: more than two shakes is masturbation) but ending on a high note with his most memorable number, DLK provides the perfect set-up for his more accomplished genre cousins.

Up till this point, the night had retained somewhat of an open-mic feel and was crying out for the touch of class that Georgia Fair brought to the stage. Not that this was a dazzling light and fire show (although we did get an interesting laser section with Lisa Mitchell and Carry Nation providing a dancing show), but the mere addition of a second instrument and a spot of composure means the last act of the night is by far the most impressive. From the first strum of the guitar there are 2 discernible differences between the final set and the 2 preceding it – an attentive crowd and a whiff of polish.

Cynics might say that the now sardine-like crowd members were merely holding out for ‘that one off the milk ad’ and perhaps there’s a grain of truth to that, but it’s still an assertion that’s massively unfair to all the good work the duo put in before the inevitable advent of Picture Frames. Take for example Marianne, the song for which this very tour was named; a beautifully crafted lullaby which features members of Boy and Bear on record but holds up fantastically on the night with just the 2 boys performing. Or even better, Something Easy, a song that features lyrics about taking money off bearded ladies and has even the hardest hearted among the audience yearning dewy-eyed for their now past youth, while Jordan Wilson croons about lessons learned from his father and being ‘so young’.

Eventually, of course, the milk song makes its long-awaited appearance and there’s universal joyousness, slapping of backs and aping of the ad’s carefree antics. It’s a great sunshine moment on a frosty evening and while it would be a fallacy to declare that Georgia Fair are leading the charge in anything, there’s an earnestness and humility about this band that makes them more likeable than their close musical relatives and hopefully won’t stand in the way of their commercial viability.