Review, GalleryDitch This MagazineJanuary 15, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Gallery, Daniel Hanssen, forum melbourne, Lewis Capaldi, Yorke, Review

Lewis Capaldi + Yorke @ Festival Hall 03-01-20

Review, GalleryDitch This MagazineJanuary 15, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Gallery, Daniel Hanssen, forum melbourne, Lewis Capaldi, Yorke, Review

words & photos: Daniel Hanssen @danthegigman

Review

*“..his disarming personality immediately affecting the mood in the crowd.”*

From what is a seeming cliche ‘rags to riches’ story, Lewis Capaldi’s meteoric rise to artistic fame has seemed to be a rather brief rollercoaster, but the down to earth Scottish singer-songwriter proved why he was so worth it at Festival Hall on Friday night. Along with last-minute call-up Yorke, the night was full of emotion and laughter as Lewis’ comedic nature merged with his talent for impassioned songwriting.

Yorke played an important role at Festival Hall on Friday night, leading the atmosphere set up Yorke managed it with ease. Her set wasn’t necessarily long but it gave enough time for people to settle into Festival Hall and acclimatise to an emotional sense of pop-rock.

Lewis’ set was profound and spanned the course of his small, yet impressive discography. Opening his performance with confetti, Capaldi was immediate in his intention to put on a memorable show at Festival Hall. He opened with “Grace”, much to the excitement of the crowd before running through both “Forever” and “Don’t Get Me Wrong”. This was followed by a brief reprieve as Lewis introduced himself and cracked a couple of jokes to the Melbourne crowd, his disarming personality immediately affecting the mood in the crowd with fans shouting out to him on stage from the get-go.

Capaldi was fiercely engaging, often stopping between tracks to have a quick gander with the crowd, to the point where later in the performance he was egged into a potential ‘shoey’ by his fans. Of course, Lewis tried to get out giving them an ultimatum but alas, he was unsuccessful, having a beer brought to him and shoes tossed onto the stage for him to complete the attempt.

Capaldi’s closing salvo of tracks was where he tended to amp the energy up saving the best for last and thankfully, not disappearing off of the stage for an encore build up. Rather, Capaldi was relatively blunt, telling the crowd he had four songs left before running through both “Hollywood” and “Fade”. Capaldi’s penultimate song “Hold Me” was prefaced by a goodbye and thank-you, the powerful song having fire raining from the skies in his set as sparklers fell behind him leaving a heavy impression on the crowd.

Finally, the show unfortunately ended, but Capaldi made sure it did so with style, finishing it all off with “Someone You Loved” and cheekily suggesting that he may be out before the close of 2020.