Alison Moyet @ Entertainment Centre Theatre, Adelaide 6/10/2017
Adelaide has been spoiled for choice with so many great shows on offer on Friday night but it was hard to go past Alison Moyet. It has been some thirty years since her last Australian tour and she more than made up for it with a career retrospective spanning some thirty five years including songs from her new album Other, the hits and songs from her synth pop duo Yazoo. Opening act Steve Balbi (Noiseworks, Electric Hippies, Mi-Sex) was an interesting an offered something different for the very ‘mature’ crowd who were there to witness this amazing show. Steve was great and really engaging paying tribute to Tom Petty with I Won’t Back Down and giving the Noiseworks hit Reach Out a new lease of life.
In a shroud of darkness, the opening monologue featured the words of April 10th from her new album Other before Alison Moyet took to the stage to rapturous applause and cheering. Wow! Alison looked great, sounded great and it was shaping up to be a great night. Opening with new song I Germinate followed by When I Was Your Girl from 2013s The Minutes it was quite easy to tell that something quite amazing was starting to unfold. Wishing You Were Here was a nod and a wink back to 1991s Hoodoo album. Wrestling with the microphone stand she called for a ‘brut’ to come to the stage (aka Dougie) to adjust the stand saying that “in the US they have tiny microphone stands and I just about put my back out.”
It is quite clear that Alison Moyet’s set list has a largely electronica flavour nowadays. The Yazoo song Nobody’s Diary was written when she was sixteen and Ski was about those types of chats that parents have with their kids that sometimes things are just shit and you have to “skate above it”. There was a bit of a false start to another Yazoo hit Only You and the crowd were getting a little excitable yelling out for requests prompting the response “the setlist is all there, I know what I’m doing, I don’t need any help”. Also, Moyet said I’m not doing that one in a reference to Invisible being left out. Changeling was described as a bit of a banger but crowd lifted when Moyet powered through All Cried Out, what a voice! It was a similar response to Is This Love which lifted the roof off the joint.
The Rarest Birds was a really poignant and heart felt moment in the set dedicated to diversity and people finding their bravery and emphasising the point we are together. This was wrapped in a personal journey of downsizing her own life and moving to a more open community in Brighton and reconnecting with the people there. Another Yazoo song, yes please! Situation was fantastic as was the set closer and Jules Shear cover Whispering Your Name. Moyet was in her element and the crowd responded and many times she thanked the crowd for their support.
The encore saw everyone up and out of their chairs dancing to two of the biggest highlights of the night by way of Love Resurrection and Don’t Go. It was pure delight and that wave of positivity swept through the room leaving fans pretty happy with what they experienced. A truly class act!
Live review by Rob Lyon
Set List:
I Germinate
When I Was Your Girl
Wishing You Were Here
Nobodys Diary (Yazoo cover)
Ski
Only You (Yazoo cover)
The English U
Getting Into Something
Changeling
All Cried Out
The Man in The Wings
This House
Lover, Go
The Rarest Birds
Is This Love
Situation (Yazoo cover)
Whispering Your Name (Jules Shear cover)
Encore:
Love Resurrection
Don’t Go