Live Review: Weyes Blood, Lost Animal, Poppongene

The warm, dreamy Poppongene (aka Sophie Treloar and band) are just what we need on this cool summer evening. Their opening set is gorgeous but, at around 20 minutes, all too brief — we’d have happily nestled in that hallucinogenic fug of dream pop for twice as long. 

Speaking of bands, Lost Animal’s Jarrod Quarrell doesn’t need one. Instead he sings and struts to the murky beats emanating from his MacBook, chipping in occasionally with a flourish of live keys. It’s a bit karaoke-plus, but still pretty captivating. 

Weyes Blood emerges wearing her trademark blue satin pantsuit, and floors us immediately with the haunting Can’t Go Home. Like Quarrell, she is singing to a backing track, and for a moment we worry that might just be the formula for tonight. But no, she grabs an acoustic guitar, and then on walks Kirin J Callinan (sporting a wife-beater, kilt and brutal mullet) to add some banshee guitar wails to folk song Maybe Love. Blood continues in confessional acoustic mode for In The Beginning, and by this point we really feel like we should be hearing this music — so expansive yet so intimate — under the sky instead of the Soc’s low-slung ceiling. Some momentary (and noisy) confusion over samples eventually resolves into Used To Be, as Blood is now joined by her bassist and drummer — the melodious '60s rock vibe has us thinking of The Byrds. Callinan’s back for Seven Words, his psychedelic guitar blending sublimely with Blood's vocal. Then Blood decides it’s time to loosen us up with a joke. “It's a feminist joke so most people don't get it.” The joke concerns a virgin and a washing machine and the phrase “dump a load” — yeah, it works. 

Turns out the moment of levity is well timed, because it gives us a chance to catch our breath before Blood launches into Do You Need My Love, which builds to such levels of intensity that we feel we can barely stand. “Are you ready for another joke?” Yeah, we are. “How about a Jeff Buckley cover?” Good one! Next is Be Free, and we’re impressed all over again by the restraint and professionalism of Blood’s super-tight rhythm section. “This is my last song, wink wink nudge nudge,” Blood announces. “It’s a Jeff Buckley song — not.” (This Buckley thing has become a recurring theme.) In fact it’s Bad Magic, and suddenly it’s like we’re listening to Joan Baez, as Blood’s gorgeous slow vibrato beats the air above our heads. For an encore she plays the ethereal Generation Why, and then finishes with a “cover of a song by my favourite artist — Jeff Buckley”. Actually it’s Mike Oldfield’s Moonlight Shadow, and it’s great.