Gigged In presents Woodlock and special guests - Review

Reviewed by Regina Su
On Saturday, the 27th of April, a group of four well-established buskers were brought together at the Sydney Live House, Lewisham. Gigged In presented the young talents of Jarne, Jack Man Friday, Everything After and Woodlock; each successful buskers in their respective areas of Melbourne and Sydney. Sydney Live House at the Lewisham Hotel hosted this event and the venue was definitely appropriate for a gig such as this. Intimate and informal, it supported a crowd of over 100 audience members, making crowd control easier for the performers and more accessible for the fans.

Young talent Jarne opened the night with his powerful husky voice, showing a great deal of control that sounded not unlike Ed Sheeran. As well as knocking down the audience with a cover of Give Me Love, he presented covers from the Foo Fighters, MGMT, John Mayer. While quite raw, he was quite professional in his execution and showed us he was an especially unique talent with unconventional methods in playing the guitar. By laying the instrument horizontal on his lap, he managed to replicate a full band of percussion and display talent with raw acoustic guitar, thoroughly impressing the audience. Especially considering successful covers of songs and the need to create an identity, buskers seem to have a licence to innovate and experiment with sound and genre and the best part is, they’re good at what they do.

JackManFriday is a young Sydney talent, mesmerising the audience with his skills in vocals and electric guitar. His manipulation of amps and recording technology is cutting edge as he uses creativity and innovation to experiment. Jack is outlandishly skilled and impressive in the collaboration and craft of song writing as he seems to have a solid understanding of the elements necessary to a harmonised sound, and can do so performing as a one man act. Jack himself has incredible control over his voice which has improved since his first EP Wolves. He ran through the set list of his new self-titled EP Jack Man Friday, showing off his incredible range of genres and vocal talents as a singer/songwriter.Buskers tend to need a mastery of all genres, if only to widen their audience catchment. JackManFriday was especially able to show his range of vocal and musical talent across genres such as beatbox, Indie-Folk, Rock, even Soul. At an event such as this, four bands with a great variation of talent, the night was a rollercoaster of tempo, mood and genre and the audience of devoted fans could do nothing but sway with the current.