Seated on red velvet seats under the intricately corniced roof of Thornbury Theatre last Thursday, you wouldn’t have doubted the promise of being privy to a stunning night.
Despite the ornate setting of chandeliers of one of Melbourne’s most established and loved venues, the worn state of the chairs, openly communal tables and scrappy half-folded A4 “reserved” signs also promised an understated gig inclusive to all.
Having only recently emerged to the fore of American folk music in the past two years, The Milk Carton Kids’ success is one earmarked by their current debut tour of east coast Australia.
Resonating a world-weary nostalgia through their simple duo-guitar arrangement, this LA pair drew in a mixed crowd through the double doors of the High Street venue.
Opening act Melody Pool made her way into the warm jade spotlight. Kicking off a night defined by pure guitar virtuosity Pool’s husky yet light vocals and playing warmed the growing crowd immediately.
Demonstrating bright turns amongst her melancholic melodies, Pool mixed the self-confessed depressing tone of her songs with self-effacing banter and a quirk of the lips.
Closing the opening set with a new song and broken guitar string, the songstress bid adieu with the earnest guarantee that more “stunning” things were to come, and how right she was.
Vintage guitars in hand, The Milk Carton Kids, Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale, emerged from the side door of the theatre and planted themselves in front of two old-fashioned broadcaster mics .
Having placed an antique leather doctors bag on a table behind them, the contents of the bag remaining unknown for the nearly ninety- minute set, an aura of mystery initially surrounded the West Coast duo, who, after casually making conversation with members of the audience, welcomed the crowd to “the banquet” of music.
After opening with “The Hope Of A Lifetime”, the first track of their latest album The Ash & The Clay, the dynamics and tone of the night was set.
After lightly admonishing photographers out the front, stating it isn’t “going to get more interesting than this”, and musing over the comma’s function within “Honey, Honey” the duo launched into the fast little ditty with punch.
Given the opportunity to display his unrivalled dexterity on the fret board Pattengale bended his body at the temperament of the shakedown riff, nailing the complex pattern of hammer-ons, slides and bends in the solo and garnering wolf whistles and applause from the crowd.
The dynamics between the duo mid-and inter -song punctuated the night and offsetting the sober tracks being played throughout the set.
With Ryan and Pattengale each playing songs that saw them sing primary vocals, as opposed to just mixed harmonies, both were given the undivided spotlight further differentiating themselves as artists in their own right.
Pattengale’s ode to future daughter “Charlie” (who, mind you, doesn’t have a birth mother let alone a due date) proving to be not only a humorous lullaby on Pattengale’s potential and questionable parenting skills, but a showcase of his warm yet elusive vocals.
Shining through the slow-burning “Snake Eyes”, a featured track in Gus Van Sant’s latest film Promised Land, and American-Evangelical- parody “Heaven”, the Milk Carton Kids found themselves closing with three epics which were thematically linked by their very American subject matter: symbolic and geographical landscapes.
“Michigan”, from their previous album Prologue, finally saw Ryan loosen up and sway to the five-minute song, his sharp vocals the most pronounced of the duo.
The last two songs “New York” and “Memphis” serving as the duo’s encore—the former, another one from the back catalogue, and the latter a bittersweet demystification of the birth city of rock n’ roll; Graceland revealing to be a “ghost town tonight” every night according to The Milk Carton Kids.
Reflecting upon the unified displacement felt by many in the audience post-show, it seems the greatest testament to The Milk Carton Kid’s ninety-minute set in their first ever Melbourne gig was the paradox of vast intimacy conjured by the duo.
