Lucie Thorne
» Lucie Thorne plays Northcote Social Club - July 17, 2009
A mug of tea and a Coopers Pale by her feet, Lucie Thorne makes herself at home on the Rosny Barn stage.
Drenched in a single spotlight before a handful of people, Thorne chats her way between songs as though we were in her lounge room.
Rocking black boots with a polka dot dress and a makeup-less complexion à la Joan Baez, Thorne looks every bit the folk rocker as she swings her cherry red Guild Firestar about the stage. Her guitar, which she later reveals as “Loretta, the love of my life,” releases lucid, pitch-perfect notes that resonate throughout the barn, climbing along its jagged stone walls and up to its highest beams.
When she sings, her voice is low, carefully articulating her desires without apology. “Heading out in the dark / gonna stand up and strain as I pedal hard,” she sings in ‘As You Find It.’ Alone on stage with nothing but her guitar, this is Thorne as you find her.
Tonight’s performance is one of clarity and poetry, right down to the grapes and red wine we are offered for a small donation at intermission. Thorne’s between-song-musings are the kind that put the audience at ease. Her delightful enthusiasm for tiny, out-of-the way towns and fellow singer-songwriters we admit to not knowing, gives her an endearing sense of wisdom and graciousness beyond her years.
On this evening, Thorne showcases songs from her latest record Black Across The Field, awarded 'Best Roots Album of 2009' by the Sydney Morning Herald. After surmising that we, the audience, “seem like nice people,” Thorne is inspired to dig out a few long-lost gems from her impressive back catalogue.
She gives one such song, ‘Noir All the Way,’ an impromptu, lilting introduction about its origins. Bob Dylan, a hero of Thorne's, referred to producer Daniel Lanois as being “noir all the way” in his Chronicles, later sparking a challenge amongst her and her friends to each write a song using that phrase.
Thorne’s version exudes the spare poetics and fraught love premise that her music seems to encapsulate. With most running short of three minutes, Thorne’s songs are delicate renderings of quietly yearning protagonists, searching for something more. Her voice is clear and deep so we don’t miss a word; her stories are intimate and thought-provoking – we don’t want to miss a word.
The girl-with-guitar genre has seen many different, and not-so-different, manifestations throughout the Australian music scene. And since artists like Angie Hart told us it was okay to drop our vowels, Australian female singer-songwriters are taking the plunge and being true to their accents.
Thorne distinguishes herself immediately by her deep, bitter-sweet tones that recall the husky, fractured notes of Lucinda Williams. Moreover, Thorne really knows how to play her guitar – her intricate finger picking and rich harmonics give life to her words, as they rise like a thousand clear vowels into the night air.
Refreshingly, Thorne doesn’t like to hold onto her notes too long – they come and go like the characters in her songs. We meet a lot of characters throughout evening – perhaps they are just different permutations of the singer herself. We can identify with them and their everyday struggles, hopes and dreams, like the protagonist of ‘The Movies’ – “She's worked here for four years now / more really if you count the summers before / she knows its only temporary / she's got big plans that she's working towards.”
In this evening’s closer ‘When the Lights Go Down,’ Thorne sings from the perspective of an audience member about the longing she feels for the singer on the stage – “Cause I know all the words / and I know just how that pretty mouth of yours / whispers and curls / swaying gently along / under my breath I'll sing harmony to my favourite songs.”
And tonight at the Rosny Barn, we are all swaying gently along to the songs of Lucie Thorne.
