Missy Higgins has returned from a five year hiatus and her sold out gig to a home town crowd provd she still has the skills to pay the bills.
A hush comes over the crowd of close to 3,000 as Higgins takes to the stage. For most, this is their first opportunity to see her perform live since releasing her latest album, The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle, earlier this year.
The show began with three songs off her latest album, and then plunged the audience into a pit of nostalgia for Higgins’ epic ballad “Ten Days” off her debut album, The Sound of White. It is during these key hits that the crowd is really roused, as the enthusiastic tapping of feet can be felt throughout the Palais, while the cry of “I love you Missy” met the performer six times during her set.
Despite the age of some of her songs, Higgins is able to breathe new life into them. The nostalgic rasp of her distinctively Australian voice is incredibly captivating; she is able to prove the strength of her singing to the crowd whilst still maintaining a captivating performance.
But the audience is not just here for songs they’ve known for nearly a decade, they’re here to see the new Missy Higgins, the mature performer they’ve waited five years to catch a glimpse of – and the crowd are not left wanting. While some of her new songs are less catchy, it is “Watering Hole”, a blues-soul soup that marks a shift in her music sonically.
This change could be attributed to Butterfly Boucher – long-time friend and collaborator of Higgins who co-produced the latest album, and co-wrote several of the songs on it.
Boucher has obviously been a big influence and lends her bass playing and singing skills to Higgins’ band. But the evening’s main attraction allows Boucher her time to shine when, half-way through the set, sher performs a heart-shattering solo tune accompanied only by a guitar and spotlight.
The stage and lighting design ran the risk of being too rehearsed at times, almost every song featured a sparse bridge or chorus in which the stage was black but for a single spotlight on Higgins.
Whilst this is obviously supposed to emphasise the poignancy of the song, at times it felt like an over-embellishment to the singer’s simple and raw songwriting. This sense of over-production could have left the performance saccharine and shallow, yet it is Higgins’ persona and between-song banter that really draws you in.
She speaks honestly about her first attempts at songwriting, and the Celine Dion rip-offs it produced, as well as her struggle with writer’s block in previous years.
If her previous 17 songs haven’t convinced you that she is meant to be onstage, her last two songs will. Higgins ends the night with “Scar” and “Steer” off her first and second album respectively.
During these songs you have now officially entered the evangelical church of Missy: audience members stream down the aisles to sing out in praise of this Australian starlet; and during “Steer” – an anthem about choosing your own destiny – you can look around to see children singing lyrics which were penned before they could talk, while twenty-something men wholeheartedly belting out the tune alongside equally enthusiastic middle-aged women.
It is Missy Higgins’ ability to speak to people from all walks of life that makes her live show a truly unifying experience in Australian music.
Check out the photo gallery of Missy Higgins’ show at St. Kilda’s Palais Theatre here.
