Heavenly Sounds is a new initiative to place beautiful contemporary music in Churches and Cathedrals around Australia. In its first effort, the organisers sent Seeker Lover Keeper and special guests on a tour of 12 such venues around the country, selling out every show along the way. Tonight we found ourselves a third of the way through the journey, with the second and final performance at Sydney’s St. Stephen’s Uniting Church on Macquarie Street.
The night launched with Melbourne-based songwriter Laura Jean performing tracks off her acclaimed album A Fool Who’ll, accompanied by Biddy Connor on the violin and keys, alongside a few from her back catalogue. Hitting the stage mentioning “God’s making me nervous”, the soft spoken performer impressed with tracks like “Missing You”, “Noel” – her own little Christmas Carol, “It’s Supposed To Be Summer” and “Australia”, which closed out the set. Though musically fairly simple, her tracks are nonetheless of impressive competition and structure, with well placed lyrics. Ultimately it’s simply lovely music, perfect in the surrounds and acoustics of a venue such as this.
Shortly after hitting the stage, Seeker Lover Keeper‘s Holly Throsby set the record straight: “I know we’re in a Church, but we still want to feel hot… so give us a little love!” Cue wolf whistle. Indeed, the crowd gave them plenty of love during the set, and they gave it right back. They told plenty of stories about the songs they were playing, often pointing out who wrote what: Such as Sarah Blasko‘s “Theme I”, the Sally Seltmann helmed “Every Time, “On My Own” – written by Blasko but sung by Sally, and “Rely On Me” which was a collaboration between Holly Throsby and their drummer Bree von Reyk.
A cover of “Sinner” by Neil Finn was thrown in for good measure, their “most religious song of the evening” and also the best song of the night. The three fine ladies also played some of their solo material. Blasko pulled out “Bird on a Wire”, Throsby with “What I Thought Of You” and Seltmann with the New Buffalo track “Emotional Champ”. The main set closed with “Rest Your Head On My Shoulder”, which was written by Sally and was also the album’s closer.
The encore included a cover of Stevie Nicks‘ “Wild Heart”, featuring three guitars and harmonies, and then “Even Though I’m A Woman”, a song about selling stuff, after they plugged their own merchandise. Always humorous and entertaining, this was a beautiful show performed in amazing surrounds with incredible acoustics – it seemed like they were singing all around us as the vocals bounced from wall to wall.
Though I maintain that the music itself isn’t anything ground breaking, it’s lovely for what it is. Whatever ends up happening with the Seeker Lover Keeper project, it has been an interesting experiment placing three musical powerhouses in the same room. On this regard, I have always found SLK particularly interesting in the fact they do consistently point out who wrote what – it’s not something I’ve experienced with any other act. Though ‘together’ as a group, they do want to remind you that they are separate talents. I think it’s fair to say that while we’re probably not going to be hearing about SLK in a few years, their individual talents are undying and undeniable. Wherever they take us musically, we will follow.
