It was a cold and wet winter night that saw me heading down to Fremantle's Fly By Night for the last night of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's Australian tour (and their current touring schedule all together). What followed was a gig which was both intense, atmospheric... and at times intensely awkward.

Opening the night were locals The Ghost Hotel, who put on a strong and charismatic performance to warm up those early arrivals. Despite the earliness of proceedings, they still had a healthy sized and receptive crowd to play to. The beauty of The Ghost Hotel is the quality of the vocal performance, with most of the band considered vocalists, the range is impressive; meaning the band can go from upbeat rockier numbers to those slower ballads with relative ease. All in all it was a fantastic performance from the band, though their energy levels seemed a little disproportionate to that of the seated audience.

It wasn't too long a wait before Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan took to the stage. Backed by a four piece band they launched into a set full of brooding intensity and atmosphere. The perfect music for a winters night. There was almost a hushed reverence before the band took to the stage, the lights had dimmed moments before - and for one of the few times in my gig going experience the audience was completely quiet, there wasn't even some guy up the back talking about his day.

Unfortunately the silence didn't stop there, the band launched straight into their opening number, and between songs both vocalists either stared out into the crowd, or went about preparing for the next song. This was not a night for inter song banter. In fact the only words we heard from Lanegan before he went off for small break was a hushed thank you. This didn't bother me too much, but it did leave for more than a few awkward silences once the applause died down. It even caused one audience member to optimistically shout hello in the somewhat vain hope of a reply, but no all it earned the audience was a bit of an extended stare.

Though you can perhaps forgive this lack of interactivity when the music on offer is so splendid. Campbell's vocals drift delicately alongside the husky growl of Lanegan, mixing dark and light effectively. Despite the relative static nature of the performance, neither vocalist moves very far, their performance is mesmerising, you find yourself drawn in by vocal alone. The band backed all this up with sterling performances that were all top calibre, but didn't draw too much attention away. Impressively they were able to jump between styles and genres with relative ease, at one point moving from a rolicking to americana feel, to a wonderful soulful vibe.

Around midway through with Lanegan departed for the moment, Isobel Campbell took centre stage, and with it came a bit of interaction with the audience, well mostly one particular member of the audience who she seemed to know from Glasgow. Alone her voice sounds just as fantastic, stronger perhaps, but no less ethereal. There was minor hiccup with the first solo number, a wave of fatigue and an overly tight belt the cause, but Campbell powered on through and the song sounded great nonetheless.

It wasn't long before Lanegan was back, and quickly showing his sense of humour, announcing to the audience that he would like to say a few words, and then reverted back to the silent intensity of before. The rest of the set passed all too quickly from here; though with the set finished and encore played, I was left wanting more, but at the same time ultimately satisfied. All in all it was a fantastic night, full of atmosphere and intensity. With beautiful and mesmerising songs that helped beguile you into overlooking those awkward silences in between songs.