Since Stonefield’s last appearance in Adelaide at the Fringe Festival earlier this year, they’ve graced the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury, and performed at The Roxy Theatre as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival in Los Angeles, just before coming home for their ‘Black Water Rising’ single tour.
Adelaide doesn’t house quite such impressive venues, and the Findlay sisters kicked off the tour on the more humble Fowlers Live stage, typically home to acts and audiences donning far more black attire and far fewer smiles. The demographic on this evening wasn’t quite so straightforward; there were men and women, girls and boys, old and young. Even before Stonefield had taken the stage, a swarm of predominantly male (tall) fans had lined up in the front row, forcing everyone else to stand at least a metre behind them in order to see. Including kids. Not proverbial kids, but actual children. Chivalry may be dead, but at least girls with instruments are drawing that same tongue-wagging response that their male counterparts have long enjoyed.
The girls emerged wordlessly to a screaming reception, and immediately set the mood with their quintessential high-energy rock ‘n’ roll with a song labelled ‘Intro’ on their set list. They play songs from their debut EP, and some that are presumably set to appear on a forthcoming release. ‘Black Water Rising’ and ‘Through the Clover’ predictably got the loudest response, and they naturally played ‘Whole Lotta Love’, with drummer/vocalist, Amy Findlay’s full and throaty wail of “Way down inside” displaying just what her voice can do.
More than just being apt with their instruments, the Stonefield girls also seem to genuinely love being on stage. Where many bands exploit the typical rock star persona in order to act like jerks, Amy, Hannah, Holly and Sarah dance along to their music, and inject an excitement and enthusiasm into the performance that the crowd happily reciprocates. The only criticism that can be made of the girls is that they don’t have the rough edge that has generally characterised the rock ‘n’ roll they’re reviving, but their cover of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ shows that they are more than capable of emulating the grit, even if they can’t write it themselves just yet.
They finish off the night playing ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ with a couple of audience members invited to play the tambourine and cowbell respectively.
Stonefield are probably the best musical outfit comprising four sisters aged between 13 and 21 in the world, but they’re also more musically proficient and exciting than most bands, regardless of age and gender (this is particularly true of guitarist, Hannah Findlay, who could out-shred anyone you know).
Stonefield have had a hectic year, but at least on the first stop of their tour, they were showing little sign of wear or tear.
– Dunja Nedic
