Gig: Clare Bowditch

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Wa2YW3-Iw&w=560&h=349]

Althea babysat for us on Friday night and so we went out to a gig. Clare Bowditch is a great Australian musician in a sort of nu folk vein; like all nu folk artists, she's been getting a bit rockier with each album.

Still, I wasn't expecting quite how er unexpected the gig would be. She started playing one of her tracks solo on stage with an acoustic guitar, but it morphed into a singalong version of Queen's "We Will Rock You"; then there was a spoken-word section that was almost stand-up comedy in which she told an absurd shaggy-dog story about the importance of creativity, accompanied by a rising crescendo of Vangelis' "Chariots Of Fire" soundtrack. Then there was a duet with someone who'd submitted a cover version of one of her tracks to her website; a teapot solo; and a bizarre section in which she came on as a Lady Gaga-style fashion maven called Lady Bodo and sung electro through an autotune application on her iPhone. Throughout, the audience was expected to join in with handcaps, humming, and imitated french horn solos.

In short, it wasn't really like any gig I've been to in two-odd decades of going to gigs. And that was great! It's always seemed bizarre to me that in an artform that cherishes its resistance to convention, gigs are for the most part so conventional - even down to the obligatory encore for which the band reserves all their most-popular songs.

On top of that, it was just a fantastic night in its own right. She was a great performer and, while I've always enjoyed her albums, I felt the songs gained a lot from the live performance. So this is basically a recommendation: if you have any chance of seeing her, do it. She's brilliant.

PS. We were outside with some friends afterwards and she turned up and started chatting to people; she was genuinely down to earth and pretty much as funny as she was on stage. Her and Kate mostly talked about childrearing. Apparently another of the people she was hanging around with was Sarah Blasko, who's famous or something. I should get to know my Australian music a bit better because I had no idea who she was.

PPS. Kate reviewed her first album when she was working at The Australian and gave it a glowing account. So she owes us.