Remi Wolf owned the crowd like a sexy, friendly villain

MUSIC
Remi Wolf ★★★★
The Timber Yard, February 12

A balmy evening didn’t discourage the packed crowd impatiently awaiting Remi Wolf’s arrival inside the humid warehouse. “Welcome to the show!” she sings before appearing on stage out of nowhere under the pink lights, then launches into Cherries & Cream, her soaring vocals filling the expansive space.

Remi Wolf performs on stage at the Timber Yard.Credit: ©Martin Philbey

Wolf is touring her sophomore album, Big Ideas, performing at Laneway Festival nationally, together with side gigs in Sydney and Melbourne. The 29-year-old Californian singer-songwriter has come a long way since her 2014 audition on American Idol, touring as a support act for Paramore in 2023 and Olivia Rodrigo in 2024.

A boisterous and vivacious performer, she jumps and dances across the stage, flirtatiously playing with her signature curls and strutting seductively. She instructs the audience through a warm-up of their vocals and bodies to ensure they maintain the momentum. The enthusiasm from her band and the crowd enhances her verve as she declares, “We need to engage in an exchange of energy … I will push energy out, and then you will push it back up.”

The set demonstrates her versatility as an artist. From indie pop track Photo ID to rock single Michael from her debut album, Juno, and the funky sounding Cinderella, her vocal range is on show. She switches the tempo with Sexy Villain, singing the lyrics at a varied slower pace. The crowd responds track after track with unadulterated adulation.

Remy Wolf had the crowd fired up at her Melbourne show.Credit: ©Martin Philbey

In moments, her performance feels untamed, unpredictable and spontaneous. During Kangaroo, a song inspired by her last visit to Australia, in 2023, she takes over playing the drums as the crowd cheers her on. She makes up a song on the spot from the phrase “lesbian waiter”, which is provided by the audience, about a fictitious hot waiter who happens to be her sister. In a surprise, she covers Walking on a Dream by Australian band Empire of the Sun.

Discussing her latest album, she reveals she wrote it while touring. “I was essentially just documenting my life at the time … you’re pretty much listening to my journal. It’s a very vulnerable album for me,” she says.

Despite the stifling heat, Wolf and the band keep spirits high as fans clap their hands, sing and dance along. She performs a co-ordinated dance move with her band during Toro, imitating a bull as they point their index fingers above their heads – the crowd mimics in turn.

When it was time to leave the venue, there was only one exit out of the building, which meant withstanding the sweaty discomfort longer than expected. Long queues for snow cones post-gig were evidence of the desperate need to cool down.

From start to finish, Remi Wolf owned the crowd like a sexy villain, making them groove all night until their sweat seeped through their clothes.

Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

DANCE
Tantrum for 6 ★★
Northcote Town Hall, until February 21

The original version of Tantrum for 6 by Harrison Ritchie-Jones premiered as part of an end-of-year showcase in 2023. And it made a happy impression, with its distinctive cartoonish physicality and funny video overture.

The show now returns as a standalone performance at the Northcote Town Hall, but this longer version is not an improvement. Yes, this review is based on a preview, but the new material nonetheless feels pretty flimsy and slapdash.

It begins brightly enough, with a parody of six toddlers crashing about, flopping and tumbling, flailing and wailing and clambering over one another in ungainly but energetic lifts and carries. It’s busy work and consistently funny.

Harrison Ritchie-Jones (left) with fellow dancers in Tantrum for 6. Credit: Darren Gill

Ritchie-Jones dominates the ensemble. He’s physically larger than the rest, but he also seems to be directing the rowdy preschool antics in real time. He initiates the shifts from one section to the next and is always at the centre of the action.

When I saw the original version of Tantrum, I inexplicably read the colourful costumes as a reference to synchronised swimming. On reflection, I now realise that designer Andrew Treloar must have the more violent sport of water polo in mind.

This imitation of angry toddlers is from the original show, but it still impresses. It’s a little like Gideon Obarzanek’s work from the early 2000s. It has a similar tone, a similar in-your-face vitality and does interesting things with ugly movement.

It’s hilarious, for example, the way Ritchie-Jones exaggerates the effort that goes into supporting and stabilising dancers during lifts and holds. This is the work that dancers are supposed to make invisible, but here it becomes a surreal comedy.

The tantrum itself doesn’t last – tantrums never do – and the second part of the show is a less impressive experiment with cameras and live projection, as the ensemble goes backstage, works out the plot of a movie and then returns to perform it.

It all belongs to a different show – one that needs a lot more work. A last-minute attempt, after the stage has been covered in baby powder, to reprise the original tantrum material comes off as an afterthought.

The short version of Tantrum was fresh and interesting because it connected to audiences beyond the usual contemporary dance crowd. It was joyful in its silliness, but it was also theatrical and stylistically unique.

Perhaps it’s fair enough for Ritchie-Jones to use the show as an opportunity to experiment with his digital toys, but the result is not as striking.

Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann