Two songwriters, two onstage conversations and one collaboration made for a single night: Stage and Storytelling returns to Brunswick.
Cooper Lower gets Stage and Storytelling underway for its second edition, one of two independent artists on the bill. The south-west Victorian, now settled in Melbourne, splits his stage time into two sets of four songs, with a conversation in the middle that digs into his songwriting and the person doing the writing.
Gaia Scarf takes the same route. Raised in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains and now another Melbourne resident, she works through her own run of songs and discussion, then joins Cooper to close proceedings with a piece shaped for this one occasion and no other. Cooper opens the night, but both artists play the same two-part format rather than a traditional support-and-headliner split.
Stage and Storytelling: Gaia Scarf and Cooper Lower
- Bergy Bandroom, Brunswick
- 23 September, from 7pm
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Stage and Storytelling is built on the idea that a gig can hold more than a set list. The series gives each performer space to open up about their craft and the roots of their material, ranging across life, music and the ground between the two, so the reasons behind the songs land alongside the songs themselves, not as an afterthought.
Every instalment is filmed, photographed and captured as audio, so the performances keep moving long after the final note fades. Inside Bergy Bandroom on the night, the audience gets both acts up close, with the thinking behind each song brought into the open rather than left off stage. For anyone who can’t make the room, the recordings carry the night to a wider audience later on.
Indie and folk anchor the bill, and tickets sit at $25 for general admission, with numbers on the door limited. Cooper Lower and Gaia Scarf trade their sets before the closing collaboration rounds the evening out.
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