Early on, a sizeable and enthusiastic crowd witnesses a superb warm-up set from rising Brisbane starlet Kate Miller-Heidke and her band. It’s obvious early that she has a small but enthusiastic group of admirers in the audience, but by the time she wraps up she’s won over a whole lot more. In fact, so much so that at the merchandise stand up the back her CDs completely sell out by the end of the evening.

Kate begins behind her keyboard, rattling off a couple of cabaret-esque numbers. Her distinctive vocal style reminds me immediately of Bittersuite. Then she steps up to centre stage and delights the crowd with the cheerful and wickedly humourous Blah blah – a song about those people those people you meet who can never shut up about themselves. Especially on dates. Aptly, the chorus consists of Kate singing: “Blah, blah, blah” as she artfully takes the mickey out of the narcissistic self-obsession of such people. The range of her vocals – reaching well into the high registers – wows the crowd.

After a few more songs, her finale Australian Idol - another wickedly funny song that’s about some of the more annoying career advice she’s received – is greeted with wild applause and cheering. She quickly confers with her backing band and treats us to one more, a marvellous operatic rendition of the Bee Gees classic Staying Alive. Those who came late definitely missed out!

It could be that there are a few nerves running through Tim Freedman and company when they hit the stage. The performance, though professional, has a slightly stilted feeling on occasions and Tim looks as though he’s trying a little too hard to be jaunty and upbeat. But maybe it’s just a feeling.

New tracks All The White Horses and Fondness Makes The Heart Grow Absent are low-key openers, though the latter definitely has the promise of a grower. No Aphrodisiac, however, reveals that the Whitlams’ strongest songs have lost none of their compelling nature. The packed crowd is enraptured by the dark, jazzy arrangement. After, he tells us that the song has just been covered by John Farnham.

“It’s either the end of his career or the end of ours,” he quips. But the band has been kicking around the traps for more than a decade and you just have to wonder whether, behind the self-deprecating humour and the gentle dig at Johnny, there isn’t an edge of self-doubt in the joke.

Old hits Made Me Hard and Fall For You Follow, then it’s time to debut another pair of new songs: an introspective number called Beauty Of Me and an upbeat, rocky song: I Was Alive. The crowd responds and it’s the perfect lead-in for Royal In The Afternoon and You Sound Like Louis Burdett. “Terror, like John Howard, begins at home,” Tim sings sarcastically and the crowd laughs and jeers the Prime Minister.

This new song, old song alternation seems to work well for the crowd. The cheers are understandably louder for hits such as Thank You, the ever-green I Make Hamburgers and Blow Up The Pokies whereas 12 Hours and Keep A Light on receive a more muted, though still appreciative, response.

Closer I Will Not Go Quietly seems an entirely appropriate finish, and the cheering of the crowd means they obviously agree with the sentiment. They drag the Whitlams back for two encores.

Gough is typically jaunty and gets everyone dancing, while Buy Now, Pay Later is the now-traditional hushed sing-along with Tim playing a backseat role to the crowd. Perhaps revealing the demographic of the audience, it’s the female voices that dominate the male ones. The night concludes with a wonderful version of a Stevie Plunder song – Following My Own Tracks. Odd to hear Tim’s vocals where you expect Stevie’s but it’s exactly the right note to bow out on.