Good On Paper, Great on Stage - An aleksiah concert review
On the 31st of May at Howler in Brunswick, Adelaide-based pop sensation aleksiah played her second Melbourne show and the final show of her national 'Good on Paper' tour. It was a high-energy, star-studded show and a lot of fun. Having seen aleksiah a few times before, this being my first headline show of hers, I cannot wait to see what bigger stages await her.
Images taken by Christopher Hall
Tilly Fenton opened, shining on vocals, with just her and her guitarist performing to backing tracks. Fenton's stage presence really came through when she wasn't playing her guitar, able to move around on stage and interact with the crowd. She played all original songs except for one cover of Olivia Rodrigo's new song 'Drop Dead', which she absolutely nailed. Barring a couple of mistimed starts due to the backing tracks, she was strong on vocals and is already signed to Premier Artists, so she has a bright future ahead of her.
Holly Hebe was on before the headliner, and she's someone I've seen a few times before who has continued to improve with every performance. She's moved a little away from a dreamscape pop kind of vibe into more of an EDM pop sound, which works really well and suits her vocals. Her work in this direction also performs best for her on streaming. This performance Holly only played with her drummer, which suited the set quite nicely, though I'm unaware if that means she's no longer playing with her full band. Holly is ahead signed to Ivy Music group and there were a few other members of the Ivy crew in the crowd, including Melbourne pop-rock locals Peach Fuzz.
Then aleksiah started, getting straight into it with 'Punch Drunk Love' (which might be my favourite from the EP), medleying it with '24'. 'Batsh*t' was next on the setlist, followed by 'Keep My Cool' and then the opening track from her new EP, 'Faker'. aleksiah then spoke about how much this tour has meant to her, thanking everyone in the crowd for their support, before playing her debut release, 'Fern'. Throughout the set aleksiah swapped from singing to playing Ruby, her heart-shaped guitar, before pulling out her acoustic guitar for the slower part of the set.
She played her third EP track of the night, 'Think About It', talking at length about how she came to write the song and mentioning her depression and the dark place she was in at the time. 'Who Are You When You're Not Performing' was next, topping off the slower part of the set before she launched into her biggest song, 'The Hit'.
A second medley hit the setlist, a compilation of Whitney Houston's 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' and Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'. Throughout the tour, aleksiah had multiple people join her on stage to dance, including Emeree, Matilda Pearl, George Alice, Chloe Parché, Lucy Sugerman, Molly Millington and Anika Luna, to name some of them. 'Clothes Off' and her fourth EP track of the night, 'Bullsh*t Baby', closed out the set. Before the final song, aleksiah had asked her fans on Instagram prior to the show for "bullshit" stories their exes had given them, getting the crowd to vote on which was worst. The winning story involved two people who had known each other for only a handful of days, with one declaring their love before backtracking on the grounds that the other was a redhead. aleksiah came out for an encore, not entirely surprising as she still had one EP track left to play, 'Be The Diva', which closed out what was a fun, dance-filled night.
