Being able to acquire a ticket to Cameron Winter's first Australian solo show was a Hail Mary.
After the release of his debut album 'Heavy Metal' in late 2024, the 23-year-old American singer-songwriter has been compared to Bob Dylan, while praised by Nick Cave for his "blistering" lyrics.
Winter is here partaking in his first Australian tour with Geese, an indie-rock band he has fronted since high school. The quartet arrived not long after a TV appearance on 'Saturday Night Live' in January that ruffled some feathers, namely because of their live rendition of the thrashy 'Trinidad' on which Winter screeches "there's a bomb in my car".
For his Melbourne headline show (9 February), Winter was booked to play his stripped-back solo material. I arrived at the Forum on Monday night fresh off the bandwagon, eager to see the old man's voice emerge from a 23-year-old body, hoping hype wouldn't dilute the purity of his expression.
First, Jing Tao took the stage. There's little information online about who this mystery opening act was, but it appears Tao is a local piano prodigy.
In what was probably confusing for uninformed concert goers who arrived late, a child sat at a grand piano playing 'Gymnopédie No.1' (composed by Erik Satie when he was just 22) to a hushed audience of cool Melburnians.
Tao segued from Satie into what he called a "banger" blend of 'Bad' and 'Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson. Raucous applause ensued.
Winter then arrived on the darkened stage half an hour later. Without a word, he sat down alone at the piano under the spotlight, back to the crowd in a white singlet.
For a good portion of the audience, hopes of seeing his face singing at all during the set were quickly dashed and replaced with vision of a faint halo crowning his mop of hair.
His vocals in the (unreleased) opening song 'It All Fell In The River' were nonetheless arresting – rich like Rufus Wainwright's, mumbling like Julian Casablancas', and warbling like something completely Winter's own. When he sustained loud notes, Winter's baritone filled any empty space.
True to form, the set was full of surprises. He played more unreleased songs and messed around effortlessly with melodies on popular songs like 'Love Takes Miles', '$0' and 'Try As I May’. No one could really sing along to these renditions; instead, the audience was reverently quiet.
His lyrics seemed to express a cosmic understanding of life: "It all fell in the river and very easily passed. And what didn't fall in the river, I abandoned on the grass."
At the same time, they evoked a sense of self-annihilation and submission, resonant with anyone who might desire to be kicked in the face by love: "Try as I may, I'm still fighting for you in my sad, sad little rock-throwing way."
Winter goofed around a bit, but rarely addressed the crowd. He was expert at eliciting reaction, however deliberately, through the push and pull of his arrangements, delaying audience applause or laughter until after quiet final key taps.
Perhaps his final work of crowd manipulation was to close the encore with an unreleased song: 'If You Turn Back Now'. I heard someone whisper "Nausicaä" to their friend, sure that Winter was about to finish on one of his most popular songs. However, he got up and left the stage, the lights and music signalling he'd skipped crowd-pleaser altogether.
I'm usually exhausted by indie musicians who troll their audiences, particularly young white male ones who get away with so much irreverence, lauded as geniuses. However, every left turn Winter takes, deep or not, seems to build on an authentic expression that genuinely makes people feel something.
