Live review: Guy Sebastian plays his string of hits to an audience who weren’t alive when they were released

Guy Sebastian’s latest tour showcases just how his fanbase has regenerated itself, thanks to some canny TV choices and an emotional hit single

Guy Sebastian has regenerated his fanbase after a 16 year career. Pic: Bronwen Caple

GUY SEBASTIAN
Hamer Hall

YOU know who really won The Voice this year? Guy Sebastian.

Not only did he smartly use his first season on the show to launch his single Choir, but the program has connected Sebastian with an audience who weren’t alive when he won Australian Idol in 2013. Last year’s music-in-schools program Don’t Stop the Music wouldn’t have hurt a bit either, another TV showcase of his genuine personality and undeniable talent.

The proof? The amount of kids at the second Melbourne show of his sold out Ridin’ With You tour.

Not just a few; kids everywhere, with their parents, as well as those old enough to remember when you had to pay for compact discs who’ve been ridin’ with him from the get-go.

It’s been an incredible year for Sebastian, who continues to be the quiet achiever of the tough local music pop scene.

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It wasn’t that long ago he was playing at the Corner Hotel, flirting with technology and beats (brilliantly, it must be said), still buzzed off getting Triple J attention, pondering his next move as commercial radio support was proving elusive.

Guy Sebastian has regenerated his fanbase in the last 12 months. Pic: Bronwen Caple

With Choir he’s cracked the magic formula of finding a huge streaming audience - something that’s eluded many local pop artists, particularly ones who came up in the CD era - and getting a song on Top 40 radio without having to make it sound like Old Town Road or whatever’s selling now.

Choir ends his Ridin’ With You show - it must be amazing as an artist when your latest single is instantly upgraded to encore status, and not for ego reasons, it gets the biggest reaction of the night.

Live, Choir is every bit as emotional as you’d expect. Sebastian wrote it for bandmate Luke Liang who took his own life. Yet it’s a party song, but with palpable heart and soul. Maybe that’s why it’s connected with so many people - an uplifting message more along the lines of Janet Jackson’s Together Again than a sombre See You Again vibe.

Choir ends, naturally, with Sebastian’s band stripping the song back to be an actual choir, leaving the stage one by one until it’s just Guy, singing to his friend. Major goosebumps.

Being a good egg, Sebastian is using this tour to highlight acts of kindness his fans are doing on that bastion of kindness, social media.

For Melbourne’s night two it’s Brett Madigan and son Ethan, who lost his mother to cancer - Sebastian sings Angels Brought Me Here for them (it’s not usually in the show) and there’s male tears all over the stage.

Australian singer Guy Sebastian on stage at Hamer Hall. Pic: Bronwen Caple

Before he plays his Idol turning point Climb Ev’ry Mountain, he recalls coming from Adelaide to Melbourne on the train as a young medical student trying to make it in music, being told he was “overweight” and would never make it. Even when he’d won Idol, an A-list American music industry figure told him he was too squeaky clean and had no “edge”.

You’re reminded just how many hits a man with no edge has shoehorned into the last 16 years.

The tour is basically a Greatest Hits show - Like a Drum, Bloodstone, Out With My Baby, Before I Go, Oh Oh, Art of Love (Tina Arena was his very special guest for the duet on Saturday), Set in Stone, Battlescars and the underrated Linger (he does the Lupe Fiasco raps on the latter two himself) - and by the end he has to smash Don’t Worry Be Happy, Elevator Love, Who’s That Girl and Gold into a medley.

If RNB Fridays ever use a local act to plonk near the top of one of their stadium bills, Guy Sebastian could easily provide an hour of power with his own urban hits (no guest rapper required - Carmen Smith even does Eve’s rap in Who’s that Girl).

Carmen Smith, Guy Sebastian, Vince Harder and Gary Pinto. Pic: Bronwen Caple

Get Along is given an added poignancy with a message about gun violence now included - it’s still extra powerful to hear a religious person question religion inside a stunning pop song.

There’s also two new songs to pacify those patiently waiting for a new album. Bottle-poppin’ anthem Let Me Drink is a return to that Motown feel he does so well and it’s a testament to his skills that it’s not just instantly familiar, but stuck in your head by the time the second chorus kicks in.

Then Believer is your epic Sebastian ballad, written as a pump-up anthem for wife Jules when she was struggling with self-esteem. That’s more personal than flowers.

It’s not just him up there of course, Sebastian has hand-picked incredible musicians and now a dream team of vocalists (not backing, they’re constantly by his side) in Vince Harder, Carmen Smith and Gary Pinto.

And while we’re used to his flawless vocals, it’s only when he covers Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and not only nails the harmonies, but adds his own twist to them, that you’re reminded just how effortless he makes his night job look.

Guy Sebastian squeezed an arena show into a theatre-sized venue. Pic: Bronwen Caple