REVIEW: Missy Higgins Melbourne Concert The Ol' Razzle Dazzle - 16th June

18 June 2012

I stepped into her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne on Saturday night knowing that I'd love every moment of Missy Higgins' concert. Forget Delta, Missy is Australia's sweetheart, a bread and butter solid musical performer, and she didn't fail to deliver a night of magic!

PHOTO GALLERY: Check out all the amazing pics from the gig here!

My personal crush aside, Missy (born Melissa Morrison Higgins) has a likeability ranking that is off the scale. She's endearing, down to earth and effortlessly funny, which all engineers together with her music to create a mesmerising live performance.

Props go to support act Butterfly Boucher, whose confidence on stage and catchy numbers got the crowd tapping their toes. She even got Missy Higgins helping her on one song, which got everyone extremely excited for what was to come.

This is Missy's first tour in five years, and the accompanying album The Ol' Razzle Dazzle is her third full length studio release.

The woman of the hour stepped onto the theatre stage at 9pm, in a hot to trot sequinned dress and literally did not take a break for the next hour and forty minutes. She peppered her set with lots of older songs from her debut record The Sound Of White and follow up On A Clear Night, but there were of course a lot of new tracks from her current album as well.

While the 'new material' section of an artist's concert is normally where most punters will choose to go to the loo/ get a drink/ politely tap their toes while secretly texting on their phone, Missy's transition between old and new songs didn't incite any of these habits.

The transition between material was seamless, didn't leave any lulls, and Missy's heartfelt explanation for each song kept everyone captivated.

This included moments where she invited her brother onstage to sing Cooling Of The Embers a track dedicated and written for their late nan Judith who passed away recently, and also a few songs dedicated to their mother who was in the audience for that show.

Adding to the lovefest of the evening, MH's band five-piece band on stage supported their leader with great intuition and humour. A performance is always more enjoyable when there's a bit of cheeky banter onstage, and Missy's impersonation of a LA Valley girl with her drummer, was one of many hilarious moments!

Other highlights of the set included the African style, cabasa shaking Watering Hole, which called for audience participation in the form of 'yell out your best jungle animal noise'!

The song itself had some sweet four piece vocal harmonies, but the animal noises that ensued kind of stole the limelight. Some people clearly misunderstood the jungle assignment though, and punctuated the rest of Missy's set with lamb, cat and cow related cries!

I also really enjoyed the pared back performances Where I Stood and They Weren't There, which saw Missy holding her own on piano.

The latter of these two songs she had taken as a last minute Twitter request, and forgot how to play it half way through. She may have dropped the F-bomb before continuing, but I'll be darned if that didn't just make the audience love her more.

In another Missy 'I'm the realest person around' Higgins moment, she declined the opportunity to encore, in order to avoid, as she put it 'the whole charade of going off and on.' Instead she asked the lights to be turned off for a few seconds (just to please anyone in the audience that might be fond of encores) before she closed the show with her first big single Scar and Steer.

You have my heart Missy Higgins! Should you ever decide you need to take a musical break again -- I can confidently say that Australia will wait for you for as long as you need.

I give Missy Higgins' performance 10 ca-Cawww jungle bird noises out of 10.

Missy Higgins The Ol' Razzle Dazzle Setlist (only partial and in no particular order because I was so engrossed!)

Peachy
Where I Stood
Set Me On Fire
Cooling Of The Embers
The Special Two
Watering Hole
They Weren't There
Everyone's Waiting
Going North
Unashamed Desire (First single off current album)
Hello Hello
Scar
Steer

Review: Tanya Chaves - The Take40 Team
Photos: Kate Wehl