Review by Angus Bell Young //
Last night’s event reminded me of me at ten years old crashing my red BMX bike attempting a curb grind down hill, shredding my knees on bitumen like Parmesan on a cheese grater. With tears welling and a lump in my throat, and the looming paternal shadow who scooped me up and carried me back to safety.
It was the kind of protective coating one hopes to experience at a Bon Iver show, and from the hauntingly atmospheric moment of first notes played, we are transcended; some of us to a world of nostalgia, others who melt through the chair by pure rich creaminess of his soulful lyrical voice.
“It’s good to be home”.
We know how you feel, Justin.
For the 90 minute event at Sydney’s Aware Super Theatre, nothing else in the world seemed to matter. Despite the elbow to elbow seating with about nine thousand others, his performance is an intimate one, alone on their island stage risers encircled by instruments of acoustic and synthetic heritage. Stereoscopic drum kits dispersed between organs, keyboards, complimented by tasteful autotune- and it was this that felt as though since their last performance at Sydney’s Opera House concert hall, Bon Iver had matured to the next level of musical experimentation.
If you closed your eyes you could imagine the footsteps from white sneakers echo as they step downstage toward the footlights: frontman Justin Vernon reaches out a hand in a collaborative catharsis that reaches a little deeper within us, to draw us closer.
Break out hit ‘Skinny Love’ played sandwiched somewhere between ‘Perth’ and ‘Holocene’ from their self titled album, occasionally stripping the ensemble right back to a solitary Justin draped in silky white lighting.
When ‘Hey, ma’ played there wasn’t a dry cheek left in the place.
“Fuck you for making me cry.” Shouted a grown man between songs from an audience so quiet the only thing you could hear was the guitar pickup hum.
“Isn’t that the whole point of this thing?” Came the reply.
