Luke Steele
The Toff in Town
August 5, 2008

The Sleepy Jackson are among the most revered alt-pop talents in Australia, so naturally when I heard that Luke Steele - the creative force behind the band - was coming to Melbourne as part of his first ever solo tour, I bought tickets with great anticipation.

Not much had been said about the direction The Sleepy Jackson would take after the band’s 2006 release Personality: One Was a Spider. One Was a Bird. But it was announced earlier this year that Steele would be pushing the band aside for some album collaborations with PNAU and Daniel Johns. These are exciting prospects, but Tuesday night’s performance was more of a retrospective than a groundbreaking insight into what the future holds.

What was most enticing about the gig was the promise of hearing Steele’s music boiled down to just an acoustic guitar and vocals. It was an exercise in making the complex simple; an intimate, unembellished affair.

You Are So Cold, Miles Away and Acid in My Heart worked perfectly in the minimalist performance. But it was the previously production-heavy tracks such as Good Dancers and Rain Falls For Wind that transferred across with the most style. Adjusting these songs as required, Steele managed to intertwine them with the melodies of the more acoustically suited tracks to create some impressive, seamless medleys.

Hearing tracks that are distinct in their recorded state become almost one and same gives you an insight to what Steele and The Sleepy Jackson do in the studio. Behind the group’s swirling vocal harmonies and string accompaniments sit some wonderfully simple songs.

On stage, these accoustic versions played out beautifully and propelled Steele’s vocals to the fore. From bass through to soprano, he pulled it off.

As expected, there was an eccentric side lurking beneath surface of Steel’s performance. Looping together some improv drum beats and guitar snippets, the music ventured from time to time towards the avant-garde, complemented by tales about marriage and children.

Then, after a relaxed hour of songs, with a few newbies thrown in, the audience was set adrift with a whimsical encore of What a Wonderful World.