Live Review: Killing Heidi

Killing Heidi merchandise including Reflector CDs, vinyl and T-shirts with original artwork cover the back of the iconic Gershwin Room. Fans pack into the first of two sold-out shows to see the band make a rocking return to the stage where they played a lot back in the early '00s. “It smells a lot different in here than it did when we were here last,” frontwoman Ella Hooper comments, admiring the renovations and omission of cigarette smoke, urine and congealed sweat. “We’re back! Who would’ve thought?” It’s been more than 20 years since they first began, and tonight is a celebration.

They pull out all the stops, with our favourite hits and a few surprises along the way. Kicking off with some of their anthemic powerhouse tracks - Calm Down and I Am - they are supercharged with energy for an unforgettable show. “We don’t have love songs, we have songs of angst and wonder,” Hooper explains, and she channels her inner 19-year-old to sing the emotional lyric on Outside Of Me – “It’s not fair!” She shows off her new tattoo and picks up the microphone stand to swing it around the stage for the ultimate rockstar moment.

They get aggressively loud for Real People before Hooper and her brother Jesse take a moment to do a couple of acoustic songs, including the one that started it all on triple j Unearthed - Kettle. They take us back to 1996 with the heartfelt folk song before playing Astral Boy from their debut album Reflector, released in 2000. Hooper comments on the fact that they’ve experimented with a lot of different sounds through the years, from teenage-pop to rock, folk, mad beats, rave shit and goth twang. They share a sweet, sad song (Black Sheep) about losing their innocence and childhood when their parents broke up. They then hit us with crowd favourite Mascara - the room rocking out and singing along to the anthemic choruses. 

Ella Hooper takes a moment to perform her most recent solo track Data Dust, which she performed as a finalist to represent Australia in this year’s Eurovision contest. The relatable song about being addicted to our phones is levelled up tonight with the full Killing Heidi band treatment. Hooper admits they weren’t sure if people would enjoy coming out on a school night for this reunion, but the full house is proof that we can’t get enough of them - we are totally prepared to rock up at work tomorrow tired and hungover without any regrets. They take us down a nostalgic road with Weir, which evokes the feeling of missing something that hasn’t yet happened. They repeat the chorus a few extra times before taking a short break, and return with a huge encore of Superman/Supergirl for those who want to get gee'd up, or as Hooper describes it: “Tony Robbins the fuck up.” Special guest Dallas Frasca joins them on stage with her incredible electric guitar work for a feisty sign-off with a cover of Divinyls track, Boys In Town. Killing Heidi are back and better than ever.