Australian singer-songwriter Matt Corby left his music to do the talking during his Auckland show over the weekend.
Photo: Erica McQueen
Matt Corby does not like shoes. He does not like shoes, and he does not like talking. He does like singing though, and playing the guitar, and sometimes the flute, and staring at the ground. He did quite a bit of all those things on Saturday night at the Auckland Town Hall in an effort to focus the audience entirely on the material from his very strong full-length release, Telluric. Unfortunately, the audience spent most of the night futilely hoping for more.
During his second-ever show in New Zealand, Corby kept audience interaction to a bare minimum. It took until the fourth song of his set for him to acknowledge the crowd, in the form of a smile at the rising chorus of voices around him on Resolution; it took until after the fifth for him to speak to them (and take off his shoes). He spoke more to his band - a five piece of drums, guitar, bass, and two keyboards - than he did the crowd. And so the show proceeded: an all-encompassing, non-stop 60 minutes of lush grooves during which Corby insisted that we join him in the vibey, atmospheric world of Telluric that he himself was inhabiting.
Corby carved out space on Triple J and the ARIA charts with a folk-pop sound, recording four EPs on the label owned by one of Mumford & Sons between 2009 and 2011. Telluric, released in March, has seen him fulfil the blues-inflected promise of previous material that was never fully realised (see 2011’s Souls A’Fire) and produce a musically complex body of work steeped in jazz, R&B, and latent funk beats. The album is sound - but markedly different.
The audience seemed prepared for that sonic shift, or at least they were patient enough to go along for the ride in good faith. These Matt Corby fans (mostly early 20s, mostly white, slightly female skewed, lots of shaggy hair and sundresses) were an excitable bunch, and they made a solid if incomplete effort to heed his chastisement at the Powerstation in 2013: "You don't have to scream the whole way through, just listen." Notably, though, while they were happy to head-nod into a collective groove for 80% of the show, they clearly relished the four songs Corby played from previous works that lifted the tempo in the room and served as a pressure release valve for the crowd’s energy.
One of those three, the 2011 breakout single Brother, was unquestionably the climax of the night. It lit up an almost-full Town Hall with a tide of voices, hands, foot stomping, and a cathartic moment unparalleled anywhere else in the set. Yet this moment, sadly (for him more than anyone else), is where Corby appeared at his most disengaged. I’m sure that song has lost its magic for him, but it hasn’t for his fans, not even a little bit… which makes it all the more impressive that they indulged him in swaying along to his near-complete rendition of Telluric.
But his lack of engagement with the audience and a relatively homogenous musical arc of the show as a whole are minor critiques against the backdrop of Corby’s undeniable talent as a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and above all, a vocalist. Matt Corby can sing, and I don’t mean “he has a great voice”... I mean he can sing in the way that jazz vocalists can sing, with the technical knowledge, control, and instinct for improvisation that makes him magic to watch live. Highlights included Monday, performed in a layered a cappella just as it was recorded; the first big singalong of the night on Resolution; the effortless cool of Sooth Lady Wine; and finishing the closing number Empires Attraction with a segue into a delicate rendition of the gospel classic A Change Is Gonna Come.
The simple stage setup, lush but clean lighting, and the Town Hall’s acoustic pleasantries were the perfect backdrop to showcase Corby’s new body of work and obvious talent. Just like his onstage reticence, that’s all intentional. He wants to be a professional artist, not a rockstar, and in that context his onstage choices make more sense. Matt Corby doesn’t speak because he wants his music to do all the talking. Lucky for him, it’s good enough that it can.
Set List - Auckland Town Hall, 23/04/2016
Belly Side Up
Knife Edge
Do You No Harm
Resolution
Wrong Man
Monday
Sooth Lady Wine
Trick of the Light
Oh Oh Oh
Brother
Souls A’Fire
-- Encore --
Why Dream
Empires Attraction
