Every now and then an intimate Sydney venue gains a coup – a rare, raw performance from an internationally recognised artist. Even rarer is when this artist happens to be Australian. Wednesday night at Tone, this was exactly what took place when New York based Daniel Merriweather took to the stage for an intimate, acoustic, naturally sold out performance, in front of a couple of hundred fans.
He was preceded by a slew of Sydney talent, and it was Fanny Lumsden who greeted me on arrival. The up-and-coming singer/songwriter was tonight performing some ‘darker’ material, with a new band, and the little I saw showed definite promise. Representing the new generation of young female talent in Sydney, Fanny is definitely an artist to watch.
Fantine, another Sydney based solo singer/songwriter was next up, and I have to wonder where she’s been hiding all this time. With a unique voice, this consummate performer embraced (and owned) the Tone stage – with nothing but her voice, a stool and mcArtney on the acoustic guitar. At face value, these were simple songs, made for the smoky jazz clubs of New York (which was once well represented in Sydney by Soup Plus… ah, times of old…). But what made the songs so special was the true depth of the lyrics and instrumentation set up to accompany her impressive voice. In other words, they weren’t so simple after all. I got my hands on her single before I left the venue, so hopefully you’ll be hearing some more about this artist on the AU Review very soon.
When Daniel Merriweather first hit the stage, accompanied by Bradley on the guitar, I don’t think anyone realised that it was actually him. With long hair slicked back into a pony tail alongside a slightly unkempt physique, he was borderline unrecogniseable from the Daniel we’d come to know from afar. It makes me realise how ridiculously different I’d look if I did the opposite and suddenly had short hair!
What is unchanged, however, are Daniel’s impressive songwriting skills, and impeccable voice. His twelve song set encompassed a good mix of the songs the crowd yearned for and recently written material. As we came to find out through the evening’s banter, Daniel had been in Australia on a bit of a creative holiday, currently working on a new album in New York (check this). However, as he arrived off the plane in Australia, he was confronted with the news that his good friend Amy Winehouse had passed away. By the end of his trip to Australia he was compelled to perform – perhaps as catharsis, perhaps as a tribute, perhaps just to remind us all he was still alive, most likely a bit of all the above – and from this we saw this gig and the night in Melbourne come together.
He opened proceedings with “Getting Out” and followed with “Giving Everything Away For Free”. A new song about “hyper reality and the death of postmodernism” followed, which saw Daniel join Bradley on the guitar. Next was a track he wrote with Cathy Dennis, which was “supposed to be a love song, but ended up becoming a song about whiskey”.
Indeed, he was enjoying a glass of whiskey for the entirety of performance (insert Jameson’s product placement here), and by the end of the performance he was pretty smashed. But you wouldn’t have noticed it had he only been performing! Impeccable singing in spite of some slurred speech. Speaking of guilty habits, “Cigarettes” was revealed to be a track about waving the ‘I’m Not Smoking’ flag – which he was doing at the time, but admitted to since picking the habit back up.
But there was no greater insight into the man himself than the song which followed – seeing Daniel delve into a discussion about Amy Winehouse next, revealing he wrong the track “Live By Night” about her (“few people knew that…”). And of her he had this to say “whatever your demons are… it’s never too late to clean yourself up and get back on track. Everyone’s got their demons.”
He kept the tributes coming with a cover of Leadbelly’s “Where did you sleep last night?”, which was supposed to have been a duet with Bad News Brown who was shot and killed four months ago. Having put off the recording time and time again, Daniel seems to have been quite affected by this, emphasising the importance of doing what you can, with who you can, while you can… you never know what lays around the corner.
The liquor themes continued in a song he played tonight for the first time “I wish I was a little bit stronger like vodka, I wish I was a little bit wiser like Budweiser”. A cover of “Maybe I’m Amazed” by McCartney got us all singing along next, and then closed the night out, with “Stop Me” and “Red” – two of his most well known tracks.
To rapturous applause and adoration, Daniel crept away from the stage, thanking his fans (in particular the one who had been unknowingly reminding him of lyrics by singing along to every word), and remarking, with slightly slurred speech: “They’ve been doing studies and you don’t find the sort of love you do in Australia.” Touche.
