Angus and Julia Stone whisked Plug away with their beautiful music on Thursday.
Firstly and fortunately I missed local girl Phillipa Hanna, I was just not prepared to listen to her songs about God and his love, and other similar crap [Ed: Other opinions are available!]. But I did catch Paris Motel who are touring with Angus and Julia - a talented collective that effortlessly combined a violin, a harmonium, a guitar and a harmonica with Amy May’s haunting voice. Paris Motel’s songs seemed pretty but they offer clever and profound lyrics. Their cover of Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was also impressive as they gave it their own unique twist and touch of class.
Half an hour later and Angus and Julia Stone took to a stage with equipment wrapped in ivy and dotted with some nifty album artwork. Opening with ‘Mango Tree’ it is clear that Angus is the complete opposite of his older sister. He stands static and hides behind his hair whilst Julia dances fluidly across stage twirling her red dress around. But both speak very softly, almost timidly, with their Australian accents when talking to the crowd.
Relatively new release ‘Paper aeroplane’, explained Angus, is about a Girl at school who wrote love letters to him but at the time he never replied and the song is about his reply and how it would get to her. A beautiful concept.
A fair way into the set and the drummer and bassist took breaks to give time for one of Julia’s songs. One of them she’d performed for two friends at their wedding, and she says it is: “A song about them finding each other”. It’s another magical song with lines like: ‘Making babies on the beach under the stars’. More creativity and originality ensued as two bedside lamps were all that was needed to set the mood of romance.
The Stones then treated the crowd to a wholly different version of ‘Private lawns’ with a faster beat and faster vocals which complete changed the nature of the song.
Then someone farted, badly, but it couldn’t ruin the set.
This was followed by a reggae style song ‘Susie’ with Julia on trumpet, which just like every other song was received by an energetic and rapturous applause. Another treat was some very new material, a mere two weeks old. And for the first time the bassist lent his vocals to Angus and Julia. They haven’t given it a title yet but the chorus went: ‘if you love me, I’ll make you a star in my universe, you’ll never have to go to work, you’ll spend everyday shining light my way.’
The set concluded on a high with ‘Just a boy’. Which Angus explains: “that travelling around you met loads of people, but anyway there was one girl who was beautiful and she made me feel like a boy.” Simple.
The Stones eventually left the stage but were forced on stage for two encores. I say forced but it was probably a plan. Anyways, the final song of the night was ‘These minds have walls’ performed solely by the siblings with Angus on guitar and Julia playing a trumpet impressively softly.
Overall, a fantastical evening and magical display of musical talent.
By Dom Sztyber
