Little Birdy

A few months ago I went to a job interview with an Australia-wide music retail store. Upon entering, I noticed the room was full of the sorts of people I wouldn’t normally discuss music with, or even hang out with. Looking around nervously, I realised they were the sort of people who would probably spell ‘fat’ as ‘phat,’ or pronounce ‘thing’ as ‘thang,’ and ‘beats’ as ‘beatz’ – you get the idea.

Anyway, walking to the Wrest Point room for the Little Birdy show filled me with the same sights and feelings as the said job interview. A pang of fear struck my chest as I realised the music fan ratio was probably lower than the “I’m-only-going-because-my girlfriend-likes-them” ratio, but nevertheless, with notepad in hand I diligently entered with an open mind…

Canadians Tegan and Sara took to the stage a short time afterwards, playing the sort of pop music that is just perfectly marketable for the mainstream audience ie straight ahead pop, catchy hooks and songs about boyfriends and like, love and stuff. They were decent enough songwriters, but the sheen wore off after two or three songs.

When Little Birdy walked on (to a pretty cool Beck-esque noise/beats, sorry beatz thing) the entire crowd surged to the Wrest Point stage as they broke into recent single “I’m Excited.” In fact they ran through all of their hits and motions, including “This is A Love Song,” “Beautiful” and “Relapse” which forced all the couples in the audience to dive for each other and cuddle, it was soooo cute. Haha, just kidding, it was horrid.

The new songs were also impressive – a move from the alt-country thing (sorry, thang) and into more dark, dare I say it P.J. Harvey territory. A pretty cool night.

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