Review: The verdict on Guy Sebastian’s livestream Together At Home concert series gig
The extraordinary talent of one of Australia’s finest vocalists was broadcast to the world when he joined the Together At Home concert series from his beachside pad, livestreamed to music fans stuck in self-isolation.
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Damn, that Guy Sebastian can sing.
The extraordinary talent of one of Australia’s finest vocalists was broadcast to the world today when he joined the Together At Home concert series.
Performing live via Instagram at the grand piano in the lobby of his beachside home in Sydney, Sebastian provoked tingles, goosebumps and tears with his half-hour set which also featured adorable dancing cameos from his sons Hudson and Archie, an introduction to the family spoodle Ronnie and wife Jules applauding in the background.
He kicked off by giving shout-outs to “my band and crew who are doing it tough” as the global concert industry faces a financial crisis from the COVID-19 shutdown.
Sebastian has been in self-isolation for nine days since arriving home from songwriting sessions in Los Angeles and has lost most of his gigs for the year, both live performances and as a coach on The Voice, which has suspended production.
Before launching into song, the style-conscious singer shared he had given himself a haircut for the show.
“It’s really made me value my hairdresser because I suck,” he said, laughing before worrying that the light on the top of his head was making him look greying.
With a nod to the hundreds of song requests he received ahead of the virtual gig, he opened the performance with a medley themed for the occasion which featured A-Ha’s Take On Me, Phil Collins’ Against All Odds, Michael Jackson’s Earth Song and his own gospel-inspired hit Before I Go.
The goosebumps-inducing vocal run he did at the end of that track prompted a flood of comments from the thousands watching it live — across Australia and as far afield as South America and Hawaii — summed up by “I didn’t know he was that good!” and “That range is huge.”
Eight-year-old Hudson demonstrated he has got the message about playing it safe in close confines when he acted as roadie to deliver an acoustic guitar to his dad, handing it over from a distance.
Sebastian performed his global hit Battle Scars – which has more than 200 million streams on Spotify alone — and kept emotions high with Choir, inspired by his late bandmate Luke Liang, and tear-jerker Big Bad World, the song he wrote for Hudson before he was born.
He closed out the set with an acapella rendition of I Still Call Australia Home.
The Together At Home concerts, which have featured sets by Vance Joy, Chris Martin, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson and Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, are an initiative by Global Citizen and WHO to alleviate anxiety and loneliness during the pandemic self-isolation and encourage people to stay at home.
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