Sydney Opera House
Friday April 12, 2013
The beautiful Brit showed off her gorgeous voice in her growing catalogue of mostly self-penned tunes, and additional covers. She opened with ‘1901’, and included hits ‘People Help the People’, The John Butler Trio cover ‘Shelter’ and an interesting take on ‘Young Blood’ and ‘Terrible Love’. Heart felt lyrics saturated in melancholic and minor keys, Birdy is devastatingly good and shows enormous maturity for a 16 year old.
For someone of that age it is exciting and daunting, raising the question of whether Birdy will fly higher in her career and maintain her huge teen following through to adulthood or settle for something more modest. She surrounded herself with a sharp three piece band, each an extra ten or twenty years older than her.
Typically, her light shone the brightest when it was just her and her piano, but it was dimmed a little when her band mate did a zealous solo on strings. A few of the tracks featuring strings were divine filling out the sound and adding a lift. There was an effort to bring her slow songs to life with extra energy and slightly different mixes on them with the use of her band, but it wasn’t always satisfying. The use of a backing track on a few of the tracks was disappointing given that she had a live capable band: they sometimes sounded sparse.
But it was an endearing and emotive gig with barely a word spoken by the star herself. She displayed her mastery of the piano with the softest of touches and the night concluded with an encore featuring fan favourite and Bon Iver cover, ‘Skinny Love’.
Reviewer: Jess Kellar
Photographer: David Youdell
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