Live Review: Teeny Tiny Stevies @ Northcote Theatre, Melbourne

Despite being a fixture in the daily lives of millions of Australians, children’s music has always had a difficult path to being taken seriously. Even its famously fickle target audience rarely maintains an allegiance to a band for long as playlists rather than albums remain the medium of choice. 

So, when something inventive, well written, thoughtfully crafted comes along, like an episode of Bluey or a Studio Ghibli film, it feels like a minor miracle. The sororal harmonies of Teeny Tiny Stevies' Beth and Byll Stephen are one of these. 

Today’s sold-out hometown concert is to promote the band's most recent release, The Green Album, a collection of songs thoughtfully released back in April to allow its fans to learn the choruses. With a start time of 10am Sunday, (presumably strategically situated between breakfast and naptime), Northcote's High Street is quickly taken over by a long line of families threading away from a slightly bemused security. 

After a Welcome to Country that extended to include a welcome to anyone who made it out of the house this morning, Beth opens the show with The Green Album's lead single, Climate Change. Her sister joins for the second verse and by the time the song arrives at its chorus, bassist Cliff Bowden and drummer Benjamin Graham have joined. 

By the second chorus, much of the audience is on its feet clapping, gazing and slightly stunned at the sight of music coming not from a Bluetooth speaker, but a stage adorned with oversized sunflowers, green fairy lights all beneath a giant mirrorball. 

The warmly intimate Light As A Bubble and kinetically exuberant Energy follow and the band hits their stride. Fans swarm up to the barrier to pull shapes and leap into the air. With younger members of the audience finding each other as interesting as the band, it transpires that a Teeny Tiny Stevies show is as much about the atmosphere as the music.

Songs move between indie folk (Had You To Teach Me), country swing (Baby In Mum's Tummy), ‘70s sunshine pop (Pre-Loved) and slippery funk (How Am I Different?), all driven by the sisters' imaginatively arranged harmonies. 

With so many songs about accepting yourself, others, managing anxiety, and expectations around milestones such as a new sibling and bodily autonomy, the children respond with an equivalent openness. New songs are warmly received and requests to sing, dance, wear sunglasses and show off second clothes are enthusiastically fulfilled. 

Many of the band's songs are sung from the perspective of a kid and hearing young people's concerns filtered through the Stephen's songwriting chops is a powerful tool to create empathy in adults and instant familiarity in children. As Byll Stephen told the ABC in an interview in 2020, “it’s not, ‘Let’s think of a shitter musical idea because it’s a kids song,’ that is not our intention at all. We want to be putting good stuff out there that’s just as good as any adult stuff you’ll listen to.” 

The complex Wilson-esque harmonies of Pre-Loved, the Talking Heads-style groove underpinning Boss Of My Own Body and the verbal dexterity of Babyccino are underserved by the tag "children's music".

“Put your hands up if you’ve seen this on ABC Kids,” says Beth as hands shoot into the air. “Put your hands up if you’ve heard this on the radio,” says Byll to more hands. “Unlikely," she frowns, "but OK.”

On The Toilet is the song that took the sisters from being a respected folk pop duo, The Little Stevies, to ARIA Award-winning giants of kids’ music with an Amazon television series. Almost the entire room knows the words, everyone who came here to dance is dancing and the collective joy is hard to resist.

For many here, born just before or during the Covid pandemic lockdowns, this is their first ever concert. For it to be such a positive experience has an incalculable impact on not only the future of the live music scene that so many readers of TheMusic care about, but for creativity and the arts in general. 

The awestruck faces trained on the band as they bring their audience on a journey of boundless goodwill and educative singalongs is, in many ways, the pinnacle of what a live music experience can be.

With nearly a decade in the game, the Stevies know how to strike the right balance. Finishing with the musical equivalent of the cafe sign that reads "unsupervised children will be given an espresso and a puppy", the band close with Babyccino, firing up the crowd all over again. 

Afterwards, the band pose for photos in the lobby and their merch table does business that would thrill a major label act, 1,400 people swarm back onto High Street in various states of excitement and tiredness. Unlike Bluey or a Studio Ghibli film, a five-year-old fan explains to me, “Teeny Tiny Stevies are real life".