Weighted Disposition

If there was an opening for a Newcastle songstress who could take you on a journey with every note, travelling a Folsom Prison Blues one moment to the longing for Angus and Julia stone’s Mango Tree the next, then it has now been filled – with my friend Maddy Flowers.

Maddy performed an intimate and stellar gig at Frothers Espresso tonight, showcasing her range across Dusty Springfield to Johnny Cash, all with a sweet, indie-folk twist.

The gig set up was small – inside Frothers Espresso’s Merewether interior, which Maddy joked may be a shared delusion between us all, and that maybe it wasn’t real. What was unreal, however, were the 3-piece performers giving their twist on covers and originals alike.

My pick of the set was Spooky, a cover of a Dusty Springfield original, which, when backed up with Maddy’s sci-fi analogy earlier added some extra spook to the crowded venue. Maddy could really twist the vocals around “Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little boy like you” and let pauses resonate.

My second pick was Maddy’s cover of Folsom Prison Blues, technically difficult and asking Maddy to drop down a few octaves, as the Johhny Cash cover allowed Maddy to smooth over some incriminating lyrics, declaring “But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” with a deadly serious look on her face.

Maddy’s set was interspersed with story-telling excellence – where she’d take us through the narrative of the lyrics with poised vocals and a lightness in her delivery that carved through any audience lull and honed a breezy, almost mystical ambience. Two examples of this were her original song, which snaked through the Australian bush and talked us through an almost out-of-body experience, and her rendition of Angus and Julia Stone’s Mango Tree. This was actually the first time I had heard Mango Tree, and I love learning new music at a gig. Maddy’s rendition encapsulated the classic Angus and Julia Stone blend of whimsy and playfulness.

The venue itself is more like a club, but not an exclusive one, Maddy explained, and is the home away from home she needs on a hard day. That may be one of the reasons this intimate gig resonated so clearly with its crowd – it felt like being played to in someone’s living room, with the lingering smell of coffee and a free beer offered, even.  

On the way out I caught Maddy briefly and informed her of my proposed angle for this blog post – which is that Newcastle has found its Laura Marling. She laughed, and then I asked, is that Ok? Maddie replied “Of course it’s OK, I love her.”

So there we have it – our Australian Laura Marling emerging from the depths of Newcastle’s coffee scene and roasting audiences with her calm energy and her smooth, indie vocals full of ethereal charm.