On Friday the 17th of June, Ngaiire brought her Blastoma album tour to Adelaide and we were treated to a world-class show in the Fat Controller’s basement.
Support came from LANKS and Jack Grace who both performed well in their own right, despite a near-empty room early in the evening.
All the focus however was on Ngaiire, and rightly so.
Arriving on stage with an entourage of backup vocalists and a backing band which included Jack Grace himself, Ngaiire was quick to engage what at that point was a relatively small crowd.
Song after song, she showcased Blastoma in all its sultry splendour, slipping in a couple of old favourites from her 2013 debut album Lamentations.
As expected, it was her otherworldly vocals that encapsulated an audience which almost doubled in number by the end of the set.
The layering effect of the backing vocals only accentuated the larger-than-life, yet humble presence of the Papua New Guinea-born songstress.
A somewhat timid crowd was turned into an entranced mass of bodies with Ngaiire’s infectious, voluptuous brand of future-soul.
The first single from Blastoma, Once, got feet tapping and bodies moving as Ngaiire broke down the walls between artist and fan with an understated, candid charm.
Jack Grace sent the crowd into a mini-frenzy with his collaboration on the track Cruel toward the back end of the show, while emphatic drum riffs echoed around the basement, providing a throbbing, almost tribal atmosphere.
The set kept building on itself, raising its intensity over and again until a breathtaking crescendo in the form of a key change midway through the final song, Many Things.
Ngaiire let her voice loose in a fitting end to a passionate, emotional performance – the kind of show you immediately feel privileged to have witnessed.
Ngaiire leaves you feeling uplifted, poignant, and once again, alive.
Unpretentious and down-to-earth, yet somehow spectral and fantastical, this obscenely talented young lady is just getting started.
