Nick ‘I haven’t been Chet Faker since 2016’ Murphy played The Tivoli Theatre (8 May), the second of a hat trick of headline shows across Australia’s metropolises in support of his latest album ‘Run Fast Sleep Naked’.
I repeat, he played The Tivoli. He did not rock it, or smash it, nor wow it, or fail it. He simply played it. Blame Beyoncé.
The ‘Homecoming’ Queen’s marching band, sequin-caped, precedent-defying extravaganza raised the bar so high that a bloke with his band and a smoke machine doesn’t cut it anymore.
Where’s your Nefertiti-inspired crown, Mr Murphy? In fairness, razzle dazzle has never been Nick’s schtick. After much debate as to his musical genre – folk-pop? Too trite. Trip-indie? Not a thing. Electro-jazz? Please no – we land on slacker soul. Hardly the opportunity for costume changes and a dance routine.
Indeed, Nick takes to the stage looking like a supply teacher who was not expecting to work today. His old material fits the label of slacker soul best. The new songs, from his first studio album since 2014’s ‘Built On Glass’, are a bricolage, at times evoking Mumford & Sons, other times Daft Punk.
They’re aurally diverse too. A rope of tinkling bells is scrunched in Nick’s hand over a reverberating synth. At one point someone whips out a flute. The audience doesn’t quite know what to make of it.
Tellingly, it’s the reversion to his Chet Faker alter ego that elicits the warmest response. They go mad for a bit of sax. “I wonder if he’ll play ‘No Diggity’,” my companion asks, referring to the Blackstreet cover that went viral in 2011, after Nick plays his other crowd-pleaser ‘Talk Is Cheap’.
“It’ll be the encore, right?” “It’s got to be.”
Spoiler alert, it was not in the encore. After going through the charade of chanting “One more song! One more song!” (Must we? Every gig?), there was no ‘No Diggity’. Shorty did not get down.
Instead, we’re treated to a new song that might merit its position in the set list once it’s soundtracked enough moments in fans’ lives. Until then, give the people what they want.
If one of the KPIs of a show’s success is how reluctantly the audience disperse once the house lights are up, this was not Nick’s finest hour.
But neither was it his worst. His voice sounded like it does on record. He played piano impressively. A security guard commented that it was a “committed performance”. He came. He saw. He played.
Nick's headline tour continues at Enmore Theatre (Sydney) 14 May.
