Lily Allen, Astronomy Class @The Arena 22/01/07

Tue 23rd Jan, 2007 in Gig Reviews

Hot off the release of her debut album, Alright Still and as part of the annual Big Day Out festival, Lily Allen’s first full Australian tour is here. Featuring upbeat, summertime ska, Allen’s debut has been a success in her home country, as well as Australia where it has achieved Gold status.

When The Arena’s doors open, things are quiet and the crowd is sparse. However, with more people constantly trickling in, it’s not long before The Arena is packed. Although Monday is a less-than-ideal night for Lily Allen’s first ever Brisbane date, the air is thick with anticipation and no one seems to mind much.

No one, that is, other than Ozi Batla (frontman for The Herd and here with his new project Astronomy Class) who continually apologises for the fact that it is a Monday night. Astronomy Class are the lone support act tonight and the longer their set runs, the more they seem to win over the audience. Their sound is a fresh of dub/reggae and classic Aussie hip-hop. Producers Sir Robbo and Chasm perform admirably and the band’s touring bassist shows considerable skill with his tasteful playing in each song of the set. Ozi Batla’s flow is impressive and though he seems exhausted (perhaps due to the hangover that he apologises for early in the set), his banter is more than adequate. The set is extremely sharp and is over all too soon.

Forty minutes into the sound check, the crowd are growing restless. A chant of “Lily! Lily!” starts on the floor. Thankfully, it’s only a couple of minutes before Allen and her band burst onto the stage, breezing straight into the laid-back single LDN, which is entirely worth the wait. Between songs, Allen amuses the crowd with witty chat about broken New Year’s resolutions and undersized male genitalia. Her stage presence is casual, cheeky and confident, but not arrogant. Almost as impressive as Lily herself is her band, which includes a drummer, a keyboardist, a trumpet player, a trombonist, a guitarist, a bassist, a tenor saxophonist and various electronic effects. The set consists of just about every track from Allen’s first and only album, as well as the B-side Cheryl Tweedy and covers of Naïve by The Kooks and Blank Expression by The Specials, who Allen describes as her “favourite band of all time”.

Allen closed her all-too-short set with the fan-favourite Alfie, which she introduced as a song about “a very naughty boy who happens to be my little brother”. The long wait times, excessive heat and the inconvenience of the show being on a Monday night were soon forgotten as Allen left an audience who had nothing but pure admiration for her.