A quick scroll, and yet another stunning Clancestry line-up – the iconic event that has become a firm fixture in QPAC's calendar for the past 12 years – and the name Electric Fields demands attention; for they are a band that simply guarantees an electrifying show.
Tonight (2 August), the duo of vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding and keyboardist Michael Ross are backed by Queensland Symphony Orchestra, lead by renowned conductor Vanessa Scammell and with orchestral arrangement by composer Alex Turley. It's a combination on paper sure to produce special results, and one that more than delivers in person.
All of the band's known and loved tracks are there; from early highlight 'Shade Away', the spine-tingling 'Lore Woman', and the Hermitude collaboration 'Glorious'.
It's a beautiful moment when Eddie Mabo's granddaughter Kristal West joins the band for 'From Little Things, Big Things Grow', with a sample of the voice of the great Vincent Lingiari woven neatly in, which then flows into 'Tjitji Lullaby' and a humorous Fielding anecdote about wanting to share songlines, but also needing to "keep sh.t to ourselves".
Later, Fielding isn't happy with the audience's seating arrangement; cajoling and encouraging until they're up and dancing to the likes of 'One Milkali (One Blood)' and the outstanding closer 'Don't You Worry', and given they are eating out of the singer's hand by now, it's an easy command to follow.
Ross, when not thanking the audience for taking part in a happy birthday singsong dedicated to two family members present, jokingly laments the "positive trauma" of the band's Eurovision experience last year, while Fielding brushes off that particular chapter in their history with a laugh-inducing "who gives a f...?".
At no time during the performance do the duo feel overpowered or outgunned with an orchestra as their house band for the evening. In fact, it only serves to lift their evocative, ethereal soundscapes to something approaching biblical.
For theirs is music meant to be raised high, to soar across rooftops, to be exalted above the everyday with raw excitement and pure joy. After last week picking up the 2025 AIR Award for Best Independent Classical Album or EP (for their 'Live In Concert (with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra)' LP), it's not like they don't have a track record with this kind of thing.
What a triumphant evening of music by one of Australia's best bands.
