Hayley Jensen is a full-spectrum, high-energy, super-impressive live performer. I’m leading with that statement in case you’re someone who likes to scroll past posts quickly, and I really want to impress this upon you.
Last night at The Vanguard in Newtown in Sydney, Jensen came out with power and precision, and that incredible voice – surely one of the greatest anywhere – and sustained it all through her set. And the whole time she was having fun – it was palpable. When Jensen is on stage – and I’ve seen her play live several times – every fibre of her being is fully present, fully engaged, and fully immersed in delivering a fantastic show.
Jensen has just released an album, Country Soul, and the set was a mixture of songs new and old, including some fan favourites from her last album, Breakin’ Hearts. She included the last track from Country Soul, ‘You Decide’, which is stylistically different to other songs on the album but the lyrics give other dimensions to stories she has told in songs such as ‘Outskirts’.
The set seemed to go by too quickly, but not because it was short. It was just great, so it was completely absorbing. And fortunately for fans last night was just the start of her tour, and she’s going to other parts of New South Wales as well as Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. If it’s not already obvious, I thoroughly recommend catching a show!
The first time I saw Dear Tommie play live it was an acoustic set at Low 302 in Surry Hills in Sydney, opening for Hayley Jensen.
I was already keen on Dear Tommie’s recorded music, including her single ‘Right Turn’ with Nathan Lamont and ‘A Man, Written by a Woman’. These were songs that had fully formed ideas and sounds, and suggested an artist who had spent time figuring out what she wanted make.
That was borne out in that set in Surry Hills and also last night at The Vanguard in Sydney’s Newtown, again opening for Jensen. It was quite a different set, with a backing track – an element that is appearing in more live sets and which I really like, because it gives artists the chance to present songs in the form they like best, which is not always with an acoustic guitar alone. Having seen her perform that earlier set, just her and a guitar, I know that she doesn’t need a backing track – her voice has a strong, clean tone and she is more than adept at guitar – so the track enhances what’s already there, and turns the set into a show.
Dear Tommie played one song, ‘The Rough’, which was in that Low 302 set as well – she’s set to record it soon (I think that’s what she said!) and given that it was memorable in acoustic version, and also from the performance last night, it will be a great addition to her existing releases. I genuinely hope she releases more songs, and soon, because there’s a sensibility at work there that is intriguing and different, and she is carving out her own brand of ‘Mid West Country’, as she calls it.
