Live Review: Big Thief, Courtney Marie Andrews, Sagamore

Melbourne band Sagamore plays perfectly amiable, Afrobeat-inspired grooves that frequently evolve into extended jams.

Their set, populated by breezy songs like Sailing and Pearl Of The Sky, is a pleasant enough way to while away half an hour. The couple of songs on which keyboardist Sophia Lubczenko sings suggest frontman Sam Cooper should cede vocal duties to her more often.

Courtney Marie Andrews is a country/folk singer-songwriter from Phoenix, Arizona. She writes songs about trains and barstools and feelin' blue. They feel so familiar, as if they're covers of songs you heard on AM radio as a kid. Andrews may not be earth-shatteringly original, but hot damn does she do it well! Heartbroken-yet-resolute songs like Rookie Dreaming and Table For One showcase her strong, powerful voice, forcing the Friday-night crowd to pay attention.

Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker is someone for whom music-making seems to be a compulsion. Her voice is so expressive and precious, quivering and quaking on songs like the mesmerising and especially voluble Mary. At times - during the dissonant opening expulsion of Shark Smile and, especially, Real Love - she is a total guitar heroine, pulling at her instrument like it's a scab she can't stop picking.

The band is playing tonight as a trio (guitarist Buck Meek is sitting this tour out to work on a solo album). Max Oleartchik's sensitive and melodic bass and James Krivchenia's dynamic drum work perfectly complement Lenker's songs. These are slightly stripped-back versions, often more raucous than on the records. This treatment means the stunning Mythological Beauty loses some of its titular quality, but the songwriting and melodies are too strong for the song to really suffer.

Lenker is an uncommonly vulnerable performer, both within songs and between them. To introduce Terminal Paradise, she tells us about her intense fear of death, brought on by watching the sci-fi/disaster/comet-hurtling-towards-earth movie Deep Impact at age seven. Rather than playing the story for laughs, Lenker tells us it's something she's trying to work through and normalise by talking about it. It's a truly personal and unguarded moment, which is rarer than one might think onstage, and it perfectly illustrates what's so special about Lenker as a songwriter and performer.

Also special: watching Lenker strain to reach the high notes in Haley and Capacity while doing the work of two guitarists at once is utterly compelling. It feels so human and alive, and as if it could fall apart at any moment. Just like in Deep Impact.