It's Been A Weird Year For Local Gigs - These Are The Acts That Made It Work

And that is two years running. With the number of awards and milestones Sampa The Great’s picked up or passed the last year or so it probably won’t even register, but this is a first for us. Nobody’s ever taken out the top local performance twice in a row. 

The Violent Soho boys came close, winning in 2016 and ’14. If you’re not looking to split hairs so did Nick Cave (kind of), with The Bad Seeds coming in at #1 in 2013 and Grinderman doing the same in ’11. Two for two though? Never seen it.

Getting our writers to agree on anything is like herding opinionated cats. It’s why we enjoy these polls so much - the results are anybody’s guess. Getting the same name for a category back to back is like finding out those cats have learnt the Nutbush. It’s the kind of thing that could only happen when an artist is really, really fucking good. Great, even.

Nobody who had the chance to see Tembo perform in 2020 (or 2019) is likely to disagree with that verdict. Everything she does seems considered in every aspect - music, fashion, choreography, videography. Tembo’s art is a mosaic, all these pieces combined to proclaim her self and her message - freedom, diversity, equality, unity - and her live shows are a potent realisation of that vision. Plus, they go off. If Final Form doesn’t make you move you shouldn’t be at a show, you’re dead. Our condolences, sorry you had to find out like this.

Of course, for the most part it has been a rough year for performers - we even briefly considered dropping the live polls altogether. But 2020 also stands testament to their creativity and tenacity, which we would be daft to ignore. Isol-Aid, Delivered, Live, State Of The Nation, countless individual efforts across different platforms - traditional shows have been dead in the water but artists refused to sink. 

How much these shows meant to our writers - and everyone else starving for a little community through lockdown - was clear in the votes. All tallied up, there was maybe the largest spread we’ve seen in the polls, and all the other entries in local performance this year come primarily from live-streamed gigs.

In second, Nick Cave is back in the lists for his incredible Idiot Prayer set at Alexandra Palace, while Paul Dempsey takes third for his 'Rarities Roulette' shows, where he opened Something For Kate’s extensive back catalogue to requests from fans. 

In between helping raise funds for industry workers through Support Act, Angie McMahon performed several streams - a piano concert, a gig for RRR Radiothon, the first Isol-Aid - these intimate solo shows netting her fourth. Kyle Minogue is in fifth, the Infinite Disco show to mark the release of her 15th album proving once again why she’s Australia’s Queen of Pop. 

In sixth, Hayley Mary has been keeping busy. Even with her cancelled EP tour the Sydney icon had the most live performances out of our entries and a stack of streamed shows (and more lined up for January). 

Even though they only played a single show - the Down To Earth climate relief concert - Gang Of Youths also continued to wow Australian audience. This is their third year running in this category, this time taking the seventh spot.

Usually we'd have numbers eight, nine and ten here, but the vote really was divisive this year. A side effect of opening the criteria to online gigs was that the writers, while completely cut off from live music in the normal sense, had more acts to pick from than ever before. So while we often have a split vote here or there, this time there was about a 50-way tie.

Alice Skye, Amy Shark, Bec Stevens, Cable Ties, Cry Club, Davey Lane, Eastbound Buzz, Electric Fields, Good Morning, Gyroscope, Hands Like Houses, Hatchie, Hey Baby!, Julia Jacklin, Kaiit, King Giz, Nat Vazer, Robert Forster, Stella Donnelly, Stevan, The Veronicas, Thelma Plum, Thigh Master, Violent Soho, WAAX, Wafia, and on and on and on.

So, given full depth and breadth of the country's music community, the last three places are undecided. Even in a year like 2020, we're just too spoilt for choice.

The Top Seven

1. Sampa The Great
2. Nick Cave
3. Paul Dempsey
4. Angie McMahon
5. Kylie Minogue
6. Hayley Mary
7. Gang Of Youths

Past Winners

2019: Sampa The Great
2018: Gang Of Youths 
2017: Midnight Oil
2016: Violent Soho
2015: Courtney Barnett
2014: Violent Soho
2013: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
2012: Dirty Three
2011: Grinderman