NEWS

This is Angie McMahon's moment


13th June 2024
By Louis Harrison
Angie McMahon's moment has come as she plays three sold-out home-town shows.

Angie McMahon sold out three shows at Melbourne/Naarm’s Forum (Louis Harrison)

The Forum’s walls have held some of the world’s most renowned voices including Raye, Cavetown, Wallows, Peach PRC and Passenger. With its picturesque starry sky ceiling and 20th-century proscenium and architecture, the Forum is a venue that lends itself to a variety of artistic ventures. It’s not surprising Frontier Touring brought Angie McMahon’s ‘Light, Dark, Light Again’ tour to its doors for three sold-out shows.

 

Angie McMahon is a Melbourne/Naarm-based singer, songwriter and musician who made her debut into the Australian music consciousness in 2017 with her single ‘Slow Mover’. In 2019, she released her first album Salt and in late 2023, she released her highly-anticipated sophomore album Light, Dark, Light Again. Having amassed over 640,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone, her intimate storytelling, commanding voice and songwriting that traverses genres has brought a variety of demographics to her project. 

 

The first night in her hometown was Tuesday 28th and there were undoubtedly a few nerves to iron out following a past performance of McMahon’s as a support. With clear imagery in her music and enthusiastic live delivery, McMahon's tour resonates with a varied listener demographic. The crowd was full of fans of all genders and ages moving, dancing and singing along for the duration of the night.

 

Kicking off the evening was supporting artist Ruby Gill. Gill’s songwriting has essences that reflect a parallel to McMahon's and hold similar ideological sentiments. There is staunch advocacy for social issues that runs through Gill’s unreleased song referencing the Palestine-Israel conflict and McMahon’s environmental interpretation of Australia’s Crawl’s ‘Reckless’. 

 

Following Gill’s set, McMahon took the stage to deliver her enthusiastic performance, but not before taking a collective inhalation with the audience as a means to quell her nerves. 

 

Many of the songs on the new album talk about the plight of learning to let go of societal expectations, to be authentically herself and to find meaning and sense in the world around her. The lyrics bind together the anxious thoughts of a late 20-something-year-old with an optimistic view of mental health to create a harmonious collage of sonic textures that transcend even that of her previous works.

 

In an interview with The Age, McMahon talks about recognising her queerness and the role this discovery had in her life and in another interview admits to feeling like a failure. These profound experiences inform some of the themes that weave through Light, Dark, Light, Again.

 

The first three songs off the bat were arguably the best way to bring fan engagement to the table from the get-go. By the chorus of the first song ‘Fireball Whiskey’ the crowd was already shouting back the lyrics, but it wasn’t until the end of the third song ‘Fish’ that McMahon took a moment to soak everything in once more. With the photographers out of the pit and her band behind her, McMahon noted the hurdle of the first nerves had made way for her to “feel like a human again”.

 

Her set list also consisted of more fan favourites across the eras of her artist project including ‘Slow Mover’’, ‘Letting Go’ and ‘Pasta’. While not every song on the setlist holds the same emotional gravity, the way McMahon commands the stage and her own vocals creates a compelling argument not to look away. 

 

A common occurrence for artists who take their shows to the Forum is to have a slightly longer set list than that of other venues. Both Cavetown and Peach PRC’s 2024 performances featured a 90-minute set and McMahon was no exception to the apparent one-hour minimum with her 90-minute set. Where other performances felt a drag in the last leg, McMahon’s energy and stage presence stayed consistent throughout the night. It should be noted that even though McMahon’s stamina can’t be faulted, longer sets do take a toll on audience morale.

 

Christopher Lewis for The Music said it best when he wrote “This is Angie McMahon’s moment, and Melbourne knows it".

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