Sia at the Opera House; Monday March 3, 2008

Sia at the Opera House; Monday March 3, 2008

The openers was called Har Mar Superstar and after some serious Wikipedia I discovered that he’s apparently big stuff (primarily in the UK!). His act is incredibly crude, think Ron Jeremy dancing around like Jack Black in any of his movies. Har Mar Superstar is a thirty year old man who dances on stage in his underwear. I’m sure no one in the crowd actually knew who he was before hand. He stomped out in white jeans and three layers of shirts, the first being a girlish pink striped wife beater, the second being a grey sweat top like the one out of flash dance and the third was a cut off t-shirt. All three layers revealed his beer belly. Har Mar Superstar is accompanied by a bassist and a drummer and a recorded electro-pop sound to follow. Har Mar Superstar is the Britney Spears pop equivalent as a man. He did tunes that were incredibly poppy, with an R & B flare to them. He himself did not play an instrument, however he danced his heart out. By the fourth song he was topless and by the end of his set his pants were off, leaving him just in his underwear. Har Mar is the epitome of tacky, it was like an awful karaoke series. The worst thing he would do (underwear aside) was he would shove his hands down in his pants and rip out his pubic hairs and throw them in the air (really really classy). The crowd was pretty accepting and the back rows probably didn’t even see it. He butchered Gilbert O’Sullivan’s beautiful tune “Alone Again (Naturally)”, the crowd didn’t really know it so it didn’t matter… Apparently Har Mar opened up for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and was booed off the stage in both Australia and New Zealand. The same happened when he went on tour with Incubus in 2001. He also had a small role in Starsky and Hutch and has been backed up by Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes) and Tony Bevilacqua (The Distillers) for percussion. It’s odd that such a classy person like Sia would host such a train wreck like Har Mar. She none the less put on a flawless show, I think I was a little too close to hear the full show properly because she has such a powerful voice. She played a good chunk off her new album titled ‘Some People Have Real Problems’. Accompanying the release of her super childish album (artwork wise) came her live show, in which she continued to play up the motif. Loads of stuffed animals were placed all around the stage as well as MS Paint art splatter across the stage in bright neon colours only a five year old would use. She eventually came out with her five piece band dressed as life-sized MS Paint people. It was quite the sight, and they played the first song in this get up. Sia is such a doll, she really has a lot of energy and honesty that so many artists lack! She’s just a really happy person and it’s really refreshing to see just that (however I could see how people could find it annoying). It really built on her character to see her act like a complete knob while she was talking and hearing her super sophisticated voice as soon as she began to sing. Now described her new album under the Soul/R&B section which I found kind of surprising considering I use to just consider her somewhat electronic (because of her roots with Zero 7). But I really see the ‘soul’ aspect of her vocals, my good pal Seamus more so refers to her as a Christina Aguilera rip-off which I desperately didn’t want to hear or think about through this entire show. Sia is backed up by a guitar, bass, cello, keyboards and percussion. Her band is incredibly talented and very musically together. These people know what they’re doing that’s for sure, Sia included in that. She has an incredible voice that is so incredibly strong, both live and recorded. There was a point in the show when it was near the end of a song and I had no idea who to look at because I could hear every minute detail in the music, it was absolutely beautiful, from the plucking of the cello, to Sia’s vocals to the piano, really nice. She played a lot from her new album but played a ton of her other material. My favourite moment was when she played the Zero 7 tune “Destiny”, it’s just such a perfect song. It was done perfectly, every sound was performed spot on by her band. Right before she played her last song she said "I'm going to play a Zero 7 song because they made me famous!"She also played her hit tunes “Breathe Me” and “Sunday” which were both featured on various TV shows and the American Eagle store soundtrack. Her honesty really shone through with the things she’d say between tunes. Like how someone would shout something at her to play something and the person would say their name, she made four dedications to people in the crowd, it was really sincere. She also does this thing that I’ve only seen twice before, where she twitches while she sings. I’ve seen this with Joe Cocker and Alanis Morrisette. 8.5/10I CAN’T STOP LISTENING TO the tune “Day Too Soon” of her new album

March 4, 2009