Live Review: Allday, Nerve, Ebony Boadu @ Liberty Hall, Sydney

Former triple j host and current-day DJ Ebony Boadu’s set commenced with an instrumental that transitioned into the late great Mac Miller’s Ladders, which started things off on a good note.

Her set was backlit by an oversized digital display, which featured her glossy, GTA-inspired likeness rendered in looping visualisations. This striking depiction contrasted her styling; her oversized plain grey hoodie was incidentally complimented by the smoke billowing from stage left, lit white, which married with the black set design. This minimalistic aesthetic matched her approach, where she focused on her decks and let her mix do the talking. Her passion was evidently in the work, lip-syncing while she stepped side to side in a trance-like state.

Interestingly, she never used her microphone or pushed a build, as warmup DJs often do. Instead, she maintained a levelness throughout her set, which consisted of throwbacks from the last twenty years and new cuts.

Brisbane Multidisciplinary Nerve began performing while offstage, emerging to a warm reception. His stage presence was evident for all attendees, demonstrating confidence, charisma and collectedness as an experienced performer.

This experience was also highlighted in his wide variety of gestures. He balanced his set with high-energy hits and three unreleased introspective and emotional songs, highlighting the intention behind his setlist’s sequencing during his interludes, where he addressed the crowd: “Do you guys wanna have a little boogie or what? Because I just trauma dumped on you, and now I reckon we should have a little dance.”

Nerve demonstrated exemplary crowd engagement during his set, which is no easy feat as a warmup act. He saw people as individuals and not a fraction of the greater crowd. This manifested in him pointing people out in the crowd and acknowledging them (Editor’s Note: This was abundantly clear because this particular reviewer was rather energetically enjoying the up-tempo moments of Nerve’s setlist, particularly for tracks Walk & Talk, Pt. 3 and ONE IN A MILLION, and Nerve verbally and physically acknowledged him numerous times during the evening).

Also, as an aside, Nerve closed his set with, “If you’ve got a drink, finish it. If you don’t, grab one. If you’re sober, good on ya. Fucking love ya.” It’s not often that an artist encourages people to support a live music venue and encourages sobriety in the same breath. The sentiment was even more refreshing than the bar’s beverages. N to the E to the R-V-E figuratively set the bar very high.

After considerable tension-building, courtesy of Ebony’s contemporary, upbeat mix, it was time for the man of the night to emerge. Fittingly, Allday’s The Necklace Tour set opened with The Necklace’s opening interlude before the headliner emerged and transitioned into track two of the album and his setlist, Toxic.

He proceeded to rock from the waist so energetically that his in-ear monitor lunged at the crowd. This was as high energy as he got for his Sydney show, with his typical demeanour aligning with his individual, easy-listening delivery style. His performance vocals were notably punchier than his polished recordings, highlighting that all vocals were live and raw; in a landscape where it’s becoming increasingly common for artists to perform with their vocal stems still embedded in their sound, this approach puts the live in live and the audience benefits.

This showed when he accidentally delivered the second verse instead of the first while performing his fan favourite, In Motion. Dedicated fans pointed out his error, and he swiftly remedied the mistake, calling on his DJ to run it back so they could do it right.

Experiences are all about this imperfection, and Allday’s handling of it illustrated his comfortability as a performer. For an artist adored for his trademark humour, Allday incorporated it in short and sweet increments. Each song had a unique looping visualisation, which was often odd—they could be described, but words wouldn’t cut it.

To close out his pre-encore set, Allday welcomed his sole guest of the night, vocalist Ben Lee, to the stage for Miss You Still, which interpolated Lee’s 1998 hit Cigarettes Will Kill You. Allday came with all the smoke for this tour.