Rest assured that in a few months time, when we'll start the conversation about the artists that stood out in the musical landscape of this decade, Courtney Barnett will certainly be on everybody's short list. With two outstanding solo albums, several EPs and singles plus a fine collaborative effort with Kurt Vile, the often self-deprecating, but immensely talented Australian singer-songwriter has rightfully received plenty of critical praise and awards.
The timing of her first visit to Athens couldn't have been better, with last year's sophomore album "Tell Me How You Really Feel" cementing her reputation and recent single "Everybody Here Hates You" (which made its live debut here) keeping the momentum going. Of course the title of the single was the complete opposite of the reaction and sentiment that Barnett received from the fans that congregated in Fuzz Club on Thursday night.
Although the show was not sold-out (as it should have been), the enthusiastic reception of the crowd made it obvious that everybody present was thrilled to have the opportunity to enjoy live the music of Courtney Barnett and her band and, as she recognized towards the end of her faultless 90-minute performance, this is something we should do again very soon.
As for the set list, as you can see below, it included most of the songs of her recent album without omitting some of the key moments of her previous work, most importantly the song that introduced her to most of us, the exquisite "Avant Gardener", as well as "History Eraser", "Depreston", "Elevator Operator" and our Track of the Year for 2015, "Pedestrian At Best". "Let It Go", from her collaboration with Kurt Vile, was also performed solo as part of the three-song encore.
Without a doubt, along with Anna Calvi's performance a couple of months back, we can safely say that this was one of the top gigs of 2019 for Athens, although we haven't even reached the middle of the year yet!
And of course we should mention that another thing that these two gigs had in common was the quite good support performance by Amalia and her band The Architects, who presented us their indie-pop tunes plus an interesting, slowed down version of the Violent Femmes classic "Blister In The Sun".
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| Amalia, live @ Fuzz Club (Athens, May 16th, 2019) |
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| Courtney Barnett, live @ Fuzz Club (Athens, May 16th, 2019) |
Courtney Barnett - Depreston (live @ Fuzz Club, May 16th, 2019)
Courtney Barnett - Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Self Confidence (live @ Fuzz Club, May 16th, 2019)
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