146. Courtney Barnett
Somerset House
13 July 2016
I first saw Courtney Barnett back in April at The Moore Theatre in Seattle when on my Grunge tour extravaganza. She stood under the old theatre’s chandeliers, fuzzing out kitchen-sink poetry with a beat-up Fender and deadpan delivery. It was funny. It was fierce. It was kind of perfect as a soundtrack for Seattle.
Fast forward to today, me and a friend are at Somerset House to see her play, largely off the back of the Seattle gig being such an excellent time. It’s not exactly the sweaty indie club setting her songs seem born from. More white wine in plastic glasses, tasteful architecture, and people trying not to dance too hard in case their hummus spills. But Courtney doesn’t care. She never did. She ambles onstage, hair a mess, t-shirt unbothered, guitar at the ready, and without a single word of pomp launches into a jagged slice of fuzz-rock storytelling that makes the whole courtyard lean in.
From the opening notes of “Elevator Operator”, it’s clear: Barnett hasn’t softened. There’s still that glorious tension between her nonchalance and the tightly wound ferocity of the band behind her. “Avant Gardener” gets an early outing and turns Somerset House into a mass singalong. “Depreston” lands beautifully too, half love letter, half lament. There’s a new song or two thrown in, as well, proving she’s still got a notebook full of oddly poetic one-liners and casually devastating truths. "Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you," still hits like a roundhouse kick.
The band are tight, gnarly in the right places, loose in the best ones and whilst Courtney doesn't do showmanship, she absolutely does presence. She makes the mundane sound transcendent and the transcendent sound like a to-do list. Her voice is still more sneer than serenade, more dry wit than diva, but it’s hers, and that’s the whole point.
By the time she tears into “Pedestrian at Best”, it's clear she's owning this weird crossover space, where punk aesthetic, poetry, and songwriting meet somewhere between Patti Smith and Pavement. The crowd, some old enough to remember The Fall the first-time round, others just out of university, clutching tote bags, are all in.
As she leaves the stage without fuss, no fanfare, it’s clear she’s just played a blinder. You don’t need lasers and costume changes when you can floor a crowd with a couplet about bin night.