Review: Megan Washington thrills in Brisbane Festival headline show
The Brisbane indie pop singer-songwriter delivered a live experience that won’t soon be forgotten.
Most artists releasing new music in 2020 haven’t been able to perform any of those songs before a live audience, so the fact that Megan Washington was headlining Brisbane Festival a fortnight after the release of her third album was a remarkable turn of events. The first of the indie pop singer-songwriter’s three shows was at The Tivoli on Saturday night, and it was an album launch to remember.
Not for its size, though. Instead of the venue’s usual capacity of about 1500 standing attendees, the show took place before an audience of a couple of hundred people sitting at candlelit tables.
In a year when live music has been in extremely short supply nationwide, the ability to see and hear performers in the flesh is not to be taken for granted. To her credit, Washington thrilled us with an experience that won’t soon be forgotten. From the bold decision to play her newest collection, Batflowers, in its entirety — albeit in a different running order than the album — to the stellar lighting design, striking use of stage space and quality of sound, the overall impression was one of strength, power and grace.
Split into three acts, the “live extravaganza (and album launch)” — as the printed program described it — stayed largely true to the arrangements heard on the album, with Washington on piano and vocals, flanked by two guitarists and three back-up vocalists, while Rob Davidson alternated between piano and bass. Programmed drums provided the backing for some of the more upbeat numbers, such as Dark Parts, Switches and Silencio, proving that these songs are engaging and dynamic without the need to rely on live percussion.
The lowering and raising of a red curtain indicated Washington had designs on building a theatrical show. In the second act she broke the fourth wall, saying she couldn’t hide her excitement any longer: this was her first show of the year, and it was something she wanted to celebrate with us.
It was in this bracket of songs where the night’s first truly remarkable moment occurred, when during Lazarus Drug her extraordinary voice scaled unbelievable heights and stayed way up there for a minute or two. Just being in the same room as that jaw-dropping instrument was enough to send everyone home on a high.
But there was one more great moment when Washington flipped the album’s running order on its head and closed the set with the title track. As she recently told The Australian, she wrote this track while at an emotional low point, as a reminder to herself that there are many beautiful things in life, and that she should keep going. It is likely to be among the most beguiling and unusual three-minute pop songs you might ever encounter, and this performance marked the first time that its light was shone from a stage.
For Washington, the purity of that moment — an artist reflecting her true heart onto her audience, and feeling their appreciation pinging back at her tenfold — was almost too much. As her excellent band played this uplifting song toward its conclusion, her voice broke with emotion and maintained a tremor all the way through to the final words: “Keep going”.
There was more music in the encore, including a surprise airing of How to Tame Lions from her 2010 debut album and a gorgeous cover of Always on My Mind featuring Washington’s sister Sarah singing harmony while sitting beside the piano.
But in this year when true joy has been hard to find for many of us, those three minutes of Batflowers, where we watched an artist fully inhabiting and performing a song that means the world to her? That luminous moment was enough to make anyone want to keep going.
Until September 15.
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