Natalie Imbruglia

There are two distinct differences between buying a ticket for a Natalie Imbruglia show and buying one of her albums. Firstly, the CD is about half as cheap and lasts forever as long as you don’t decide to use it for a drinks coaster. Secondly, you can skip through all the crap tracks with the simple press of a button, something that you can’t do at gigs – no matter how fancy modern technology is getting.

Support act Robert Post produced probably the most boringly apathetic soft rock that I have ever heard. You’ll like him if you think Bryan Adams is the epitome of rock n roll. Post's songs all have the one over bearing similarity; that they’re instantly forgettable. They all gloss over childhood memories and his lust for girls and at times the lyrics are sickeningly unbearable. How about “I’ve tried to be the mean mysterious one, I’ve tried to be the sweetest candy you’d suck on” for instance? An irritatingly long support slot, the worst drum solo I’ve ever heard and a set list of songs that redefine the term bland. Well what do you expect from an artist who used to be in a band called ‘Sissy Dogfish’?

The crowd was older than I expected, mainly couples in their late twenties, with the odd exception of a rather lost looking individual in a Megadeth T-Shirt, whilst Imburglia is part of the clan that graduate from Aussie lunchtime/teatime soap ‘Neighbours’ and then has a stab at a musical career. Kylie, Holly Valance and more recently Delta Goodrem have all used the soap as a springboard for a career in music.

Her best material comes from the ‘Left of the middle’ album when the summery ‘Torn’ became an anthem back in 1997. The timing of the single was perfect and for a short while at least Imbruglia was one of the coolest female solo artists around. These days she doesn’t have quite such a high status, perhaps due to the staggering amount of rock-pop female solo artists that we have.



Imbruglia’s vocals seemed much more suited to the slower numbers like ‘Shiver’ from the latest album and the classic ‘Smoke’. This was definitely an area Imbruglia was more comfortable in. The faster numbers sounded slightly off key and Imbruglia made one or two attempts to rock them up a bit for the live performance.

The set was rounded off with the brilliant ‘Big Mistake’ proving that Imbruglia has some fantastic material to draw from. There were times (quite a few of them infact) where the gig seemed to drone on and if it wasn’t for the brilliance of her singles then the gig would have seemed very weak. The difference between her best songs and her worse songs was huge.


Imbruglia didn’t speak much, but rest assured her microphone was switched on. She included the obligatory expletives which seemed out of place on little Natalie. I don’t remember Beth saying anything like that in Neighbours.

All in all a fairly average gig from the Australian pop star. A good gig if you want to take the whole family out.

FUTURE GIGS

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