KEY POINTS:
It was a concert to tip-toe into, where a sneeze, a squeaky shoe or a bottle dropped on the floor drew a stern gaze.
The sell-out crowd could have been at the opera but they were here to see US avant-folkies Bill Callahan and Joanna Newsom.
After an
opening set by Australian newcomer Holly Throsby, Callahan (aka Smog) sat against a regal backdrop of red velvet with his guitar.
His dispassionate, almost morose delivery, comic timing and ability to make every word important no matter how banal, make him the opposite of a melodramatic singer like James Blunt. He is Steven Wright crossed with Lou Reed, abandoned on the roadside.
Those sparse, fractured songs demanded patience but the pay-off was great, particularly on Let Me See the Colts and haunting new song Sycamore, which seemed to lope around in circles.
His similarities with singer, harpist and girlfriend Joanna Newsom were not instantly apparent. Callahan has a dark intensity; Newsom looks as you'd imagine the cliched vision of Heaven's harpist might - like Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. She sounds like heaven, too, playing an enchanting fusion of Appalachian folk and nursery rhyme but without the twee connotations.
Her voice is soft and earthy like a flute, yet able to hit high-pitched squeals without breaking windows. Her songs are brimming with striking imagery.
Opening with Bridges and Balloons from her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender, she matched her boyfriend's ability to lurch between moods with constantly shifting time signatures and unpredictable pitch shifts.
Part of the fun was watching her hands make giddy arpeggios and the occasional jazz riff or to listen to the antiquated language of a song such as Inflammatory Writ.
She also lightened things up, making jokes about the bruises her harp inflicts on her knees and a friend's forgotten birthday. But it was songs from her more mature second album Ys, such as Sawdust & Diamonds and Only Skin, that proved she's no dandelion-wearing novelty act. Complex, rambling and beautiful, they seemed to come from a place no mortal could recreate. Heavenly indeed.
