A crowd in the middle of Melbourne on a Friday night is always going to be an unpredictable one. It’s not a school night, so a significant amount of punters are usually well oiled by the time the headline spot arrives. A quick scan of The Palace proved that this was definitely the case – many groups were well on their way, and the occasional suit in the crowd signaled that there were probably a few that were a good five hours into an after-work session.
The question was: would this intervene with Matt Corby’s delicate approach to his performance? Like his all too oft-compared peer – the late, great Jeff Buckley – Corby has a gift for treating his guitar like a fragile apparatus, brushing it with the most delicate touches and taking the volume of a song down to near silence, while barely whispering over the top.
This was certainly a recurring theme of the night, but it was the dynamics of Corby’s set that made it truly shine. His vocal range speaks for itself, and his guitar-playing ability is undeniable, but it was the way he toggled between bluesing-the-fuck-out with songs like Souls A’Fire, before stripping the set right back to just him and a piano or a guitar, that kept us immersed all night long.
Untitled was superb, and probably the pick of the crop from his big-selling Into The Flame EP. However, it was always going to be his breakthrough single, Brother, that would have the crowd backing him up the most, and he certainly justified why, wailing every note as if he was singing it for the first time.
His band were clearly on top form, but it was Corby’s ability to use just a guitar and his vocal chords to completely silence a raucous Friday night crowd that was the real winner. There were times when all you could hear was Corby’s gentle melody, the occasional plucked string, and the rumbling hum of the Bourke Street traffic outside. It was glorious.
BY CALLUM FITZPATRICK
Photo credit: Zo Gay
LOVED: The dynamic of Corby’s set – always keeping us guessing.
HATED: The rain outside.
DRANK: Whatever my generous friend EmFog handed to me.
