Grace Cummings, The Espy St Kilda

Venue:

The Espy St Kilda, Melbourne

Date: 12/07/2024

I had seen the name around but my first encounter with Grace Cummings was as support for Calexico. She walked onstage barefoot, to an electric piano. She was backed by a guitar. Then, out came that deep, sonorous, voice that immediately had us looking at each other in surprise. Voice asid I wasn’t a huge fan of her songs but Chas was so when he said he had a spare ticket for her own show with a band I said sure, why not.

I did some research. A Melbourne folkie with the classic Dylan, Joni and Neil influences, she attracted attention with a version of Bob’s It’s All Over Now Baby Blue. I’d love to hear that.Signed to King Gizzard’s record label, toured with them, done a lot of shows in Europe and America been on Colbert etc and most recently put out a new album produced by Jonathan Wilson. Ramona has a much bigger sound than her first 2, maybe to match her voice. The Cover and promo pics have this demure looking woman in long dress and perfectly coiffed hair.

So, on to the iconic Gershwin Room. A smallish room for her first Aussie show after an overseas tour. After 2 songs the platform boots are gone, and she is into it. I have a bad habit of trying to categorise artists. I can’t pigeonhole her songs, but her voice reminded me a bit of deep voice Patti Smith, the strength and purity of KD Lang and (credit Chas) Neil Diamond. Yes, the Cracklin’ Rosie hitmaker. Maybe her folks had Hot August Night but the deep voice, the swoops and that occasional growl kept taking us to the other Neil. Of course, the songs are nothing like any of theirs. The band did the job with the highlight being the regular appearance of a theremin player. It worked! Really musical.

Mrs Wells doesn’t like her voice or her songs. I said “that is coz you can’t sing along”.The melodies aren’t catchy and there is little verse chorus in the songs. I have listened to her latest album, Ramona, quite a few times. I like about half of it. She has this vocal trope of starting down low and drifting up. It is quite alluring but can get repetitive making songs sound more samey than they really are. . Grace said “some people say my songs are sad, they’re not sad they’re hope-less”. Big songs and plenty of drama about them. She came back quickly after the set to play another song saying, “we forgot to play this one and that’s a fucking cunt”. No, not demure at all.

The audience:

mainly serious younger women.

It made me think..

Afterword material.

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