Live Review: Daughter, Vancouver Sleep Clinic

St Stephen's Church has a knack for capturing beautiful intimacy not often found elsewhere in Sydney, and when 17-year-old Tim Bettinson of Brisbane warm-up act Vancouver Sleep Clinic howled his first note, the room took notice. With songwriting well beyond his years, Bettinson and his band of three shyly offered their material, fresh-faced but stoked to be there. And everyone dug it. Beautiful builds, intimate indie storytelling and the capacity to stun a crowd into silence ­surely only the beginning for the group.

Already off to a peaceful start, London's alt-rockers Daughter further hypnotised fans in a set spanning 90 blissful minutes, a collection of tunes from their back catalogue of EPs and 2013 record If You Leave seamlessly floating from one delicate tale to the next. Frontlady Elena Tonra was gorgeously awkward with banter but fascinating to watch in song, pouring her heart into the microphone with precision, only to be upstaged by guitarist Igor Haefeli cutting sick on his axe with violin bow creating an unreal sonic atmosphere on tracks like Still. The usual trio (rounded out by drummer Remi Aguilella) was multiplied to a quartet for touring, adding an additional multi-instrumentalist to fill out the sound and perfectly translate their recordings to a live arena. And many songs performed at St Stephen's were at a studio-level standard; Love and fan-favourite Youth were so slick, and even the hardly rehearsed and first ever live performance of Touch, for which the band were undeservingly disappointed with, had hairs standing up.

An issue that began with Bettinson's support slot and continued throughout Daughter's set was the distribution of sound. Tonra was barely audible in early stages, the loud – albeit electric – guitar, keys and drums swallowing her humble voice whole. Even towards the latter stages of the gig, Haefeli was seen calling for instruments to be turned up or down. As a result, the intimacy of the space was occasionally lost but this is no fault of either act and both rose to the occasion. Early on, the polite Tonra shared the desire to be well behaved in the church, and that message seemed to spread – the St Stephen's audience hanging on every lyric with bated breath and willing her voice on against the beautifully buzzing ambience behind her.