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It was a matinee, on New Year’s Day, and so while some continues to sleep off the night before, the crazy went to Richmond, selling out Soko’s 2pm soiree. The crowd was quiet, obviously still in recovery mode and feeling seedy, though were excited to see the tiny French chanteuse.
Opening the afternoon’s events was Melbourne quartet the Harpoons, with nineteen sixties-esque pop tunes, simple guitar and lots of harmonies. Their light hearted, soulful rock and roll songs warmed the Corner hotel, even Soko herself sneaking out for a piece of the action happening on stage. Many were impressed with the foursome’s stage-gracing effort, everybody watching what the band was up to. It was just as if the band and their surfy tunes were bought from 1964 to be here today.
Playing after the Harpoons was solo-songstress-with-a-twist, Pikelet. Using a series of loops and such, she created her backing musicians out of thin air, a simple tap on the microphone, repeated over and over again to keep time, a vocal sung and repeated to become the harmonies in which she then sung over the top, even the sharp sounds of a piano accordion were added into the mix, put all together with some catchy keys or acoustic guitar to create light, soft pop songs. Everyone was curious as to how she created her music, her use of loops and how she created them right there on stage gave her entertaining performance some novelty factor.
Then of course was Soko, trussed up in a floral green dress and cowboy boots, you can hear the audience silently ‘awwww’ at the sight of her, the stage set up with candles, incense and cat-shaped lamps. Her lengthy two and a half hour set consisted of songs about everything and anything imaginable, mainly sex and how shit boys can be, picking songs at random from a moleskin notebook. While the set was comedic and happy, it was her famous tune ‘I’ll Kill Her’ that saw a few tears well up in her eyes, obviously a tune very close to her heart. She joked and laughed with the crowd, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere, rare at gigs these days. The seediness that plagued the concert-goers disappeared as her humour filled the room, joining her was drums, keyboard and a violinist to thicken up her quirky songs, but never taking away from that trademark simplicity.
Though a majority would have known very few of the songs she played, everyone went away singing one song or another, each tune memorable, simple with many ‘wtf???’ kind of moments thrown in between (a song about wet dreams!!!) that made up for the hangover from the night before.
