Tears amid the bows after the performance of a lifetime

It boldly dances them as battlegrounds of conscience, codependency and addictive behaviours incapable of giving Wilde a truly freeing love, destroying himself, his children and wife (danced with glowing loveliness and newfound dramatic depth by Sharni Spencer) and his literary genius. There are, it seems, some stories too achingly tragic for words.

Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers
Liberty Hall, November 8
By JAMES JENNINGS
★★★½

Fans in all black from their eyeliner to their Doc Martens boots, wallet chains and the kind of Aussie-flavoured alternative rock that was huge on Triple J 30 years ago: for anyone old enough, a Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers gig feels like time travelling to the mid-’90s, when this particular strain of music was capable of shifting the cultural needle.

Besides the phones that get whipped out to record the most popular songs, the only thing to offer a stark reminder we’re living in 2024 comes when lead singer Anna Ryan dedicates the song Girl Sports to Donald Trump. “This one goes out to that orange Cheezel-looking motherf__ker,” they say as the crowd boos, “who doesn’t believe women have the right to have autonomy over their body.”

As a song, Girls Sports is a perfect summary of the Canberra four-piece’s ethos of Riot grrrl-adjacent female empowerment: “Maybe you should try sticking to girl sports / And men would like it better if you didn’t talk / Don’t get me wrong you’re pretty good for a girl band / It’s kinda complicated you won’t understand.”

It’s heartening to see young people at this all-ages show go absolutely spare at a rock show – something that feels like an anomaly in the current cultural climate. The enthusiastic fan response clearly owes a lot to Ryan’s blunt, take-no-crap lyrics and the proficiency of the band itself – guitarist Scarlett McKahey, drummer Neve van Boxsel and bass guitarist Jaida Stephenson (joined by touring guitarist Meg Holland).

The mix tonight gives a bit too much beef to the drums and bass and not enough clarity to the guitars and vocals – it’s often hard to make out the lyrics – but it doesn’t dampen the tight, punchy and powerful delivery of the songs, which are mostly taken from last year’s well-received debut album, I Love You.

Covers of Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan songs may invoke the biggest singalongs of the night, but Teen Jesus has plenty of bangers to match it: the Strokes-ish I Used to Be Fun, the anguished Treat Me Better and seconds-long scorcher Cayenne Pepper.

There’s no reinventing the wheel, but Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers do what they do well, their support slots on Pearl Jam’s Australian tour this month bringing the ’90s worship full circle.

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Scotland Unbound
Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sean Shibe
City Recital Hall, November 9
Reviewed by PETER McCALLUM
★★★½

The subdued first half began with guitarist Sean Shibe playing wispy ornamentation like highland mist around a quietly bright major-key melody in A Scots Tune from the 17th century Rowallan manuscript of lute music.

The rasping and raucous second half began more aggressively, with great planks of quivering dissonance from electric guitar and amplified string players of the Australian Chamber Orchestra led by Richard Tognetti, as they piled layer upon anguished layer in Julia Wolfe’s Lad arranged by James Crabb.

Misty light and craggy darkness set the parameters for this unpacking of the Scottish soul which ended with inhibitions thrown aside in arrangements of Martyn Bennett’s contemporary recreation of dance and “bothy” culture (a reference to humble huts of the Scottish highland).

After A Scots Tune, the ACO took up the mood with a haunting quiet melody in From Galloway by James MacMillan, arranged for classical guitar and strings by George Duthie, and imbued with still moments and lush harmonies.

Friedemann Stickle’s Da Trowie Burn, arranged by Crabb, introduced a jauntier fiddle tune and beguiling charm in the cadences. There followed three further arrangements of Scottish songs for string orchestra by Crabb: James Skinner’s lugubrious Ossian, Niel Gow’s soothing Lament for the Death of his Second Wife, and livelier variations on Struan Robertson’s Rant (whose melody is played in Tognetti’s score for the film Master and Commander).

The reflective mood of this half was completed with Canadian composer Cassandra Miller’s concerto for guitar and strings, Chanter, cast in four verses, connected without a break.

It began with low guitar notes followed by dark swirling shadows from the strings. Each verse developed in this way with repeated patterns in guitar echoed by overlapping ripples in the orchestra, gradually moving higher in pitch. Although the mood was disturbed at one point by Shibe leaving to retrieve a forgotten capo, the piece evolved and sustained ethereal calm and glistening delicate stillness, as though to evoke the pulse of the universe.

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After interval, Crabb’s arrangement of Wolfe’s piece cleverly orchestrated the overtones of nine bagpipes for which the work was originally written. It moved from the grinding drones, mentioned above, to The Slow Melody, which gradually reintroduced the human element, and The Fast Melody which became increasingly frenetic.

David Fennessy’s Hirta Rounds returned to the quieter mood of the first half, using rapid fluty cross-string textures to create shimmering glow in constant movement like northern lights. Then it was down to earth and a knees-up for the Martyn Bennett arrangements, followed perhaps by a wee dram for some of the capacity crowd.

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