Angus & Julia Stone

Just three years into their journey in the challenging world of professional music, Angus and Julia Stone have shown a prowess that has pushed them to the upper echelons of Australian music.

Immediately after releasing their first EP they have managed to generate a following that has ballooned from a cult audience gathering in small pubs and clubs to invites to rock festivals to now filling the austere and magical walls of Thebarton Theatre. They have managed to develop a sound that is immediately attractive, peppered with low-impact hooks but also that manages to assimilate into your mood with little conscious acknowledgement. Last night, it was apparent that like a blind marionette puppeteer, their own personal cathartic experiences of their own music have the power to move minds through their smoothly, swaying and natural subtlety and their own fragile character’s.

This brother-sister act certainly do possess a certain mastery of acoustic instruments, Angus especially who managed to bust out reggae riffs, lap steel, slide, funk along with a beautiful sense of folkmanship, all with visible self-assurance. During all the time he spent driving the understated songs the pair had individually written, Julia whether with guitar, clarinet, piano, trumpet or the absence of musical objects within her possession was exorcising those feelings and meanings deep in her soul that only her own unique style of musical expression can exonerate from her being. The sense of naive sincerity that flowed and drifted through the exuberant crowd perfectly demonstrated from where the band’s musical power is drawn. The only concession the band made that lessened the emotional clout of their idyllic melodies came from the lack of expression and musical development fostered by the rhythm section that at times seemed to making up the numbers as opposed to expanding on the experience for the punters. Maybe that is their role in the band’s live set-up, but Uncle Steve especially, the drummer who has now become a permanent member of the band only contributed power and passion once. It was in the dying moments of the gig when the whole band expanded beyond their boundaries of intricacy and nuance to introduce muscle and power, through a kiss-off jam that was over as soon as it had begun.

As for the set list, it was dominated by songs from their debut album A Book Like This, with a few exceptions, such as Paper Airplane and Mango Tree, which were played with assuredness and are slowly developing into crowd favourites songs, selections were mostly taken from their newer material. Silver Coin, Just A Boy and The Beast were especially beautiful, perfectly taking advantage of the soundscapes their piano so easily produced. Worthy of note also was Hollywood perhaps one of their most interesting songs lyrically, Angus’s addition of bottleneck slide, just gave enough texture to turn the song into something that tiny bit more striking. Add the harmonica, beautifully played by both siblings and you only increase the power of their music.

Live, Julia’s voice changes. From the understated and wispy choralising of their studio work, she somehow managed to draw upon a greater power, while maintaining her soft caressing flow. Somehow from somewhere her voice had taken on a quality you would though that might have come from some wonderfully symbiotic car crash between Toni Childs and Bjork. A perfect example of this was Wasted in which the wounded and love struck main character only becomes more believable as a result of Julia’s new sultry tone.

And to end the show, just as unexpected as the duo’s performance itself, the Adelaide crowd showed its class once more for The Beast, with some drunk women having to be dragged away by security after jumping on stage to dance between microphone stands and startled musicians.

While Angus and Julia Stone at no point so far in the current infancy of their careers have shown any great ambition or desire to push their musical conceptions, one cannot argue with their sincerity and honesty, their ability to deliver simplistic riffs while highlighting their emotional core and their beautiful stoned humility. If we can draw anything from these guys, its that there is great power in fragile honesty and just because you’ve got a bigger audience and are reaching more people, that never has to disappear.

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