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MUSIC
Weyes Blood ★★★★
Opera House Joan Sutherland Theatre, June 1
Every now and then you just have to sit back in the darkness and let an artist touch your heart. Weyes Blood’s first of two shows at the Opera House for Vivid Live was one of those nights.
The high priestess of brooding, folksy chamber pop, Weyes Blood, aka Natalie Mering, pairs her gorgeous voice with heartbreaking, ’70s-tinged songs of disconnection and isolation. Most arrive in waves of lush, baroque sound that complement her vocals and heighten the drama.
Weyes Blood’s Vivid Live set managed to balance bombastic and restrained moments.Credit: Jordan Munns
Mering kicked off with It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody, the opener from her new album, which served as a prelude to the catharsis to come. Subdued at first, the dreamy piano ballad evolved over six minutes and left us adrift but comforted by the idea that everyone else was hurting too.
The prescient A Lot’s Gonna Change reinforced the theme, a song from 2019’s Titanic Rising that she last played in Australia in March 2020 as the world was on the brink of upheaval.
It’s tempting to point to the 2019 tracks as the highlights. The stellar Andromeda and fun Everyday with its faint Beach Boys vibe were the most uplifting, and the encore of Something to Believe (the “thesis of the set”) and a solo acoustic rendition of Picture Me Better ended the show on a high.
But the most haunting moment was the recent single God Turn Me Into a Flower, where a sparser instrumental gave Mering’s voice space to shine. Chord changes and crescendoes came to the fore as Mering disappeared into silhouette in front of a collage of visuals from documentary maker Adam Curtis. A ghostly figure draped in a white cape, Mering had fans entranced as she flitted about the stage as if she were a candle flame.
The set struck a good balance between the bombast and the muted moments, and for all the themes of loneliness, there was a resounding sense of hopefulness and optimism. If Weyes Blood was a phantom at the Opera House, she was a happy one.
Weyes Blood is also on at Opera House Joan Sutherland Theatre on Sunday, June 4.
Reviewed by Michael Ruffles
THEATRE
The Lucky Country ★★★★½
Hayes Theatre, until June 17
What is Australia’s identity as a country? Who are Australians, exactly, and what do we stand for? In The Lucky Country, a new chamber musical with music and lyrics by Vidya Makan in collaboration with director Sonya Suares, national myth-making gets a well overdue shake-up.
Milo Hartill, writer Vidya Makan and Karlis Zaid starred in Hayes Theatre’s The Lucky Country.Credit: Philip Erbacher
We meet Boy (Joseph Althouse), a Thitharr Warra 13-year-old who, inspired by Baker Boy’s proud black artistry, begins to rebel against the settler narratives of Australia taught in the classroom. From there, we branch out from those old stories to get a wider view of the Australian experience.
Through swift musical vignettes we meet, among others: an aspiring Byron Bay nudist, a refugee in Mingoola growing a new garden; two older Australians from Far North Queensland who find unexpected love on a Contiki tour; a woman who confronts the dangers of walking home alone at night; and Australia herself, singing a sexy pop banger about all the ways she could murder you. The cast – Althouse, Makan, Dyagula, Milo Hartill, Jeffrey Liu, Kristal West and Karlis Zaid – are irresistible.
Slowly emerging through the numbers – which are playful, witty, and disarming choreographed by Amy Zhang – is a through line of subversion and open-hearted exploration. The jokes are clever and unexpected and the scenarios, all contained in beautiful, short songwriting, are complex. Projections (by Justin Harrison) help situate us in the world of each song, and for the most part, the transitions between songs and the tonal shifts move with grace and charm.
Makan is a gifted storyteller, and the songs she and Suares have created are extraordinary. They summon time, place and emotion in an instant by pastiching melodies drawn from pop, Oz rock, hip-hop and folk. In a breathtaking moment, musician Billy McPherson emerges with a yidaki and touches the sublime. Heidi Maguire as musical director keeps the heartbeat of the show strong.
As the show moves towards its conclusion, it breaks open to reckon with our history of war (challenging the glorification of diggers), cultural appropriation and global responsibility, before probing at the wounds baked into our national story by genocide, the stolen generations, and the systemic harm done to Indigenous Australians – while honouring the resistance, cultures, resilience and ingenuity of the first people who defined, and cared for, this land.
The final two numbers are instantly unforgettable – they remind us that nothing about Australia is simple, and a story is never complete unless it includes all of us. It’s remarkable.
Reviewed by Cassie Tongue
Sydney Morning Herald subscribers can enjoy 2-for-1 tickets* to the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales during June 2023. Click here for more details.
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