It was a rainy evening towards the end of the Brisbane Festival when Jen Cloher graced the stage of the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent. Despite the array of other performances that were taking place that night, the people of Brisbane trekked out in the drizzle to catch a glimpse of the narrative story-teller playing a one-off show in Brisbane as part of her most recent tour.
No support act preceded her, as per the norm with shows in The Spiegeltent, but Cloher needed no introduction. Nor did she need a fancy outfit or band to stand out on the stage; her khaki green jumpsuit and acoustic guitar were her only adornments, providing the perfect backing for her musical style. The crowd was a varied one, with younger punters attending with their mothers, older people there with a bottle of wine, and a huddle of dedicated fans peering up at the front of the stage, but everyone there was there with one thing in mind - to listen, learn and absorb.
She opened with a joke, breaking the ice and the tension in the room, before launching into Regional Echo, a single off of her latest album. The start of the music drew more punters from the chairs to the floor, and the crowd swelled as her expert voice, emotional and wise, filled our ears. From this she went into Kamikaze Origami and from that point, everyone in the room was mesmerised.
Her hour long set was an amalgamation of music from across all of her records, from tracks like Rain, off her first record Dead Wood Falls, to more recent tracks like Sensory Memory. Her voice in a live sense is a lot softer than what you hear on a recorded version, and I wonder if she feels more at home on the stage? Her musical performance is broken up with funny anecdotes of her life - from being obsessed with The Doors to being a childhood arcade champion, and the honesty in her storytelling is what brings her music to life.
Finally, the show drew to a close, and she finished up with crowd favourite Strong Woman, before coming back on for an encore, playing Save Me From What I Want, and Dark Art. Jen Cloher is at times an open book, and that is what makes her so likeable - her diary style approach to music makes watching her perform like having coffee with a mate - and who doesn't like that?
Olivia Shoesmith