Live Review: Odette, Thando

Backed by a keyboardist and drummer, Thando encourages us to "shuffle up" closer to the stage and those assembled duly oblige. This artist's spirit shines brighter than the glitter on her cheeks and Work shows off her effortlessly elastic vocal range.

We're all immediately in awe and each song further ups the ante. Thando's facial expressions, hand gestures and undulating body movements elevate the portrayal of each song and she demonstrates astonishing vocal control when closing out Gone as we whoop in disbelief. Nothing could prepare us for Thando's inspired take on Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, complete with snippet of Say My Name by Destiny's Child injected within. She expertly conducts a left-versus-right audience sing-off and is a joyous presence on stage. Truly inspirational stuff. Thando needs to be experienced live to be fully appreciated, as brilliant as she sounds on record. And the fact that she hops straight down from the stage and into the crowd to supply a post-set selfie on demand just makes us love her more.

Also performing as part of a three-piece rounded out by keys and drums, Odette takes the stage next, resplendent in a dark green long-sleeved Lurex sweater, black mini and ankle boots. Her vocal proves to be as perfect as it is on record and Odette's keys playing style is rather flat-palmed, which would probably result in a strike on the back of the hand with a ruler by an old-school, traditional piano teacher. Odette's keys player ably takes the male vocal parts usually supplied by Lanks in Onyx.

A couple of punters speak loudly in the crowd during songs, which is extremely disrespectful to both performers and audience. There's also one attention seeker who yells out ridiculous calls such as, "Stop singing!" between songs. Odette handles these strange heckles good-naturedly, but what the actual fuck, people? Do we need to introduce a compulsory unit on how to behave at gigs in high school?

After her bandmates leave the stage, Odette moves to a centrestage keyboard, perching on a stool to introduce her next song before revealing she wrote Pastel Walls when she was just 15 years old. Her vocal riffing is super-impressive. Odette admits she tends to feel vulnerable when performing Do You See Me, which she also presents solo on piano. Following this song, Odette commends a front-row fan for supplying "beautiful" harmonies throughout and it has to be said that the lyrical knowledge within tonight's crowd is next-level (even though some in attendance annoyingly belt these out in tone-deaf fashion). 

Odette then presents a song we're told she only wrote a few weeks ago, which is introduced as Wait For You. Her Like A Version cover of Magnolia by Gang Of Youths perfectly suits Odette's voice as if the vocal melody was written specifically with her soaring, emotive pipes in mind. After thanking us for supporting her since the first song she put out, Odette offers up said song, Watch Me Read You, opening with those evocative spoken-word segments (which many punters expertly mimic). The crowd happily supply "Oh-oh!" BVs. What a song! The trio leave the stage triumphantly, but there are still two more songs written on their setlist, so we know they'll be back.

Returning to the stage solo, Odette breaks into Lotus Eaters — another song that shows off her spoken-word prowess to offset that crystalline singing voice. Odette's backing players then return to the stage for this evening's closer, Fractured Glass, and there's much enthusiastic thrashing around during the song's short, banging breakdowns. She's sold out four shows at Northcote Social Club off the back of her debut To A Stranger set, which is no mean feat, and Odette announces she'll be hanging at the merch desk post-show to meet her fans. Well played.