Raval is one of Sydney’s most interesting new venues. Located on the second floor of Sydney’s Macquarie Hotel (or “The Mac”, depending on whom you ask), the room is pure class – dimly lit, with a crimson curtain covering the stage and a carpeted floor populated by plush couches and wooden tables with candles at their centre. It served as a strangely fitting setting for singer-songwriter Dan Mangan’s final night in Australia. Over the past month or so, Mangan has toured up and down the east coast of the country, in tow with Minnesota blues man Charlie Parr and the second-gen ladies of Folk Uke. Tonight, however, he was nobody’s support act – Mangan proved easily why he can be such a charming, engaging and occasionally mesmerising performer with tonight’s more than excellent show. 

First to take to the Raval stage was one Emma Russack. Young, blonde and attractive, she stood on stage with her electric guitar appearing to begin an insightful, atmospheric set of delicately written tunes. “Appearing to” is the key phrase of this sentence. What actually happened was some chick playing two chords over and over (happening in every song, bar a Neil Young cover) and singing about nonsensical tripe that could have easily been made up on the spot. Her first song, for instance, was about packing a lunch. The second song was about being a dog. You get the idea. Even worse was how damn serious she looked when she was performing these songs – irony is obviously some kind of a foreign concept to such a groundbreaking songwriter. Unoriginal, uninventive and a rather uncomfortable way to begin the evening, Russack left the audience stone-faced and awkward – save for her adoring parents cheering on from a nearby table. 

Business picked up considerably with the arrival of folk-rockers The Retreat. Wasting little time, the quartet briskly swaggered their way through a string of tender, upbeat and sincere tracks about some of life’s more simple pleasures and pains. It was an inoffensive yet very easily likable sound that blended an in-depth love of vintage pop, classic rock, alt-country and late period folk. They had a truckload more staying power than Russack, charming their audience with cutely awkward stage banter and even a setlist written up on a whiteboard they had brought along with them. Given the right breaks, one gets the feeling that The Retreat will graduate from the support band slot, and properly evolve in their own right. As evidenced here, plenty of notions were established towards this. From here, it is simply a matter of working on stage presence, harmonies and tightening the screws on songs that brim over with their potential. 

At last, Dan Mangan made his way to centre stage. With him, as they were for the entire tour, was double bassist and fellow Canadian Michael, as well as guitarist Cameron Potts and drummer Lee Carey from Sydney’s own Dead Letter Chorus. Mangan often made his love of DLC known, going as far as to invite the band’s singer, the tiny Gaby Huber, onstage for a rendition of his track The Indie Queens are Waiting. It never felt like gratuitous “I love Australia” brown-nosing, in a vein similar to that of many acts from overseas – Dan truly seems to love this country, and the musicians he was working with. Mostly playing a showcase of tracks from his second record, entitled Nice, Nice, Very Nice, Dan engaged everyone in view with his quaint style of vulnerable, affected folk that begged, borrowed and stole from nearly every guitar-based genre you could think of. His humour was also key to charming the crowd, including dealing with a drunken Irish heckler and telling a gross-out joke about a hotel’s television. 

Each song in its own right across the hour-plus set worked to full effect. “Tina’s Glorious Comeback” mixed his love-hate relationship with his hometown of Vancouver with wry humour, opening number “Road Regrets” threw in powerful lyrics and haunting four-part harmony, and “Basket” barely left a dry eye in the room as Mangan passionately delivered this harshly realistic ballad on the acceptance of fate and growing old, dedicated to his late grandfather. It was a set interlaced with the extremes of emotion – great joy and great sorrow – that gave an insight into a truly fine performer and writer. 

What was witnessed at this performance is difficult to explain to anyone who wasn’t there. Dan’s following in Australia may still be small, but rest assured those of us that have begun our 2010 with this wise-beyond-his-year Canadian will pack classy, small rooms for him once more when he returns. And trust us, he will return.