Gotye Review - Sydney Graphic Festival

Saturday night, Sydney Opera House saw the much anticipated live album preview of Gotye's Making Mirrors.

In the five years since the release of Like Drawing Blood, Wally De Backer has hardly been sitting stagnant.  His involvement in The Basics has seen touring extensively throughout Australia, Europe and Japan, the release of a live album and wearing the caps of producer, song-writer, collaborator and gardener (or so we hear).

Being a part of the Sydney Graphic Festival, proceedings started with the animation "The Lost Thing".  A sweet, poignant short fitting to open a Gotye show.  Based on the short story by Shaun Tan, narrated by Tim Minchin and scored live.

At the end of the short, I find the air a little thicker with testosterone as the all-male version of the new Mini-Orchestra and Gotye came on stage to the delight of the audience.  They started immediately with the title track Making Mirrors, and lead straight into last year's release Eyes Wide Open.  

There are real differences between this and his previous work, notably less traditional sampling, but still there. Start Of The Art one of the album stand outs, brings sounds similar to Like Drawing Blood, particularly A Distinctive Sound.

Not only was the completely sold out audience treated to an almost full playing of the new album, included were tracks from his back catalogue.  Hearts A Mess, slotted in straight after the hugely popular Somebody That I Used To Know.

Finishing with the favourite Learnalilgivinanlovin, Wally managed to lift the crowd from the stark and oftentimes dark animations that played, particularly with Don’t Worry, We'll Be Watching You, to every person in the theatre having a bit of a chair dance.

There is something about watching De Backer perform.  Happiness exudes.  Still first performance jitters were present.  Seeking assurance from the crow that “it sounds good?”

At the end of the set – standing ovation from every one of the 2500 people lucky enough to get tickets to this show.

Gotye and his Male Mini-Orchestra are touring Australia throughout September and October.  But if you don’t have tickets, bit of bad luck.   All venues except Perth (which went on sale this morning) are almost completely sold out.  He is playing a few festival dates, Homebake, Pyramid Rock and Canberra's Foreshore Festival.  Check here for tickets.


Set List:
Making Mirrors
Eyes Wide Open
Smoke and Mirrors
State Of The Art
I Feel Better
Easy Way Out
Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You
Somebody That I Used To Know
Hearts A Mess
Save Me
Bronte
In Your Light
Learnalilgivinanlovin