Twice during the set Barnett was joined on stage by bandmate Stella Mozgawa to perform some new songs. Mozgawa added a touch of bass here, and some percussion there, adding layers to the new songs. The crowd loved every new note and were audibly delighted at the news that Barnett will be releasing a new album later in the year.
Heart breakingly brief but brilliant musician, Arthur Russell, made a posthumous cameo during Barnett's performance with her raw and emotive cover of his track, I Never Get Lonesome. Barnett also shared a glimpse of her folk-country leanings later in the evening when she wowed with another cover, this time from the songbook of the great Gillian Welch. Bringing stripped-back ballad Everything is Free to the stage, Barnett miraculously became both Welch and her long-standing collaborator and guitarist Dave Rawlings, at once, her guitar playing wooing the crowd with jangly charm.
Other standouts during the set included History Eraser, one of her earliest hits and the last song of the night, Sunday Roast, from her most recent album, which seemed very appropriate on a Sunday evening.
Barnett is Australian, a fact which comes through very strongly in her lyrics. Whilst the stories she tells are accessible to all, when she talks about it being so hot she feels like dying, only someone who has lived those brutal summer days really gets it. Which is why, as an Australian myself - who hasn't been able to go home for a good long while - her show felt like a long-awaited postcard from home.
