Tiny Ruins are the kind of support act worth getting to a venue early for. Touring their delicately sublime album, Brightly Painted One, the Kiwi trio put on a master-class in folk at The Hi-Fi. Hollie Fullbrook’s voice is so good it makes you forget how mediocre Laura Marling has become in the last few years and her shy and humble banter was endearing. Having toured with Sharon Van Etten through the US, the two bands have obviously become close, with shout-outs and adulations following every few songs. Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens was an obvious set highlight and if finger-picking acoustic guitars is your jam, Tiny Ruins represents some of the best antipodean product you’ll get off the streets.
Sporting a haircut previously owned by Karen O in 2003, Sharon Van Etten arrived on stage with a five-piece band and opened with Don’t Do It, blowing away any remaining mid-week malaise the crowd was suffering through. While the sound was impressively rich, the set-up was at times overdone and cumbersome, cluttering tracks with an unnecessary wall of sound when it’s its sparseness on record that makes it so memorable. There probably wasn’t a need for three guitars and a keyboard during most of the songs, but it did help build a cinematic soundscape for some of the more emotionally arresting moments.
Van Etten’s a charming and charismatic character, with a self-deprecating ability to make the most mundane moments like re-tuning her guitar into an opportunity for amusing and witty repartee. That Jersey accent is undeniably cheeky and the crowd ate it up, laughing and applauding her in equal measure.
At her best, Van Etten is beguiling, All Over Again and Nothing Will Change proved this, but often she falls into the trap of repetition in her verses; a forgivable trait in pop music when you’re singing over a Katy Perry hook, but not when you’re tempering a mournful ballad. This is all the more disappointing, as Tramp was produced by Aaron Dessner of The National, so you would think she’d be implicitly aware of how important lyrics are to her music.
The gig climaxed with a goosebump-rendering performance of Your Love Is Killing Me, a song that suits her vibrato perfectly and is the pinnacle of her artistic achievement thus far. The encore finished with Serpents, but nothing was ever going to top the set finisher, with that Sharon Van Etten has given us a window to her potential and that is an exciting prospect indeed.
BY CHRISTOPHER LEWIS
Loved: A genuine double-bill in Melbourne, what a rarity.
Hated: Below par acoustics.
Drank: Cool Ridge, refreshing spring water that you can trust.
