Live review: Sharon Van Etten

In these parts, Sharon Van Etten will now forever be known as The Woman Who Made John Campbell Cry.

She was a surprise musical guest on the superfan's current affairs show last night, her live-cross performance of Tarifa leaving the guy damp of cheek and beaming of smile.

Campbell wasn't able to make Brooklyn-ite Van Etten's first New Zealand show down the road at the Kings Arms because of MC-ing commitments elsewhere.

At least there was one less tall bloke for the rest of us to stand behind and maybe it was a good thing Campbell stayed away for other reasons (though he did make it to the show late in the piece).

If one song from afar had him welling up, the whole hypnotically lovely Van Etten performance would have left us all standing in a very big puddle not just of his making.

This was Van Etten's first show of a small-venue New Zealand tour after a four-albums-in-five-year-rise to American indie stardom, her 2014 Are We There making many a best-of-year list.

Its songs predictably dominated her setlist right from its opening track Afraid of Nothing setting the tone for the evening with Etten's voice skating across and high above her gently chimed, glacial guitar.

That airiness of melody - frequently doubled in harmony with joined-at-the-larnyx single accompanist Heather Woods Broderick - brought to mind the more ethereal offerings of Joni Mitchell.

While the spare echo chamber setting of much of the songs reminded of the likes of Mazzy Star and occasionally edged into Americana territory.

But with her endearingly goofy between-song chats introducing yet another lyrically frank, soul-bruised song, Van Etten was both confidently entertaining and affecting.

True, with a drums-free backing even more minimalist than her albums, there was a certain sameness of delivery throughout.

Though that was countered with Van Etten swapping electric guitar for piano for the equally quietly devastating I Love You But I'm Lost and I Know. While the personal anguish was momentarily shifted aside for I Remember Mountains, a song Van Etten wrote from unrecorded lyrics for a tribute album to late 1960s folkie Karen Dalton.

And the performance's uncluttered approach certainly gave plenty of space for the woozy Van Etten-Woods Broderick harmonies to sparkle in relief, especially on songs like Tarifa which she dedicated to her absent mate, John.

Yes, it was totally marvellous. Someone had to say it. Sniff.

In support was a solo Robert Scott, the Bats' frontman happy to admit he was still finding his feet as a live solo act.

But it gelled neatly, especially on the songs off his past two terrific solo albums, especially those from last year's The Green House which featured the shared vocals of Hollie Fullbrook (Tiny Ruins) who joined Scott on stage to add large dollops of sweet dreaminess to the likes of Little Bird, Lazy Boy and a cover of John Cale's Andalucia.

- nzherald.co.nz