Jen Cloher’s Live Show Is Proof That Being Kind Is Truly Radical

Jen Cloher warns the crowd that she’s about to pull out a tissue of her pocket. “I need to blow my nose, I’m not crying,” she laughs. “I just needed to let you know. Not that there’s anything wrong with crying.”

Even if she had been, it would be perfectly understandable. A moment before she pulled the tissue out of her pocket, Cloher had told her 300-person crowd that her late mother, Dr. Dorothy Urlich-Cloher, had just been posthumously honoured by Auckland University as part of a commemoration of New Zealand’s 125 anniversary of the Suffrage moment.

It’s obvious it means a lot: tears or none, you can hear the pride in her voice. Throughout the gig, Cloher continues to be just as candid — and the audience match her with nods and calls of support.

Part of that intimacy is thanks to the venue, The Red Rattler, a small and ambient volunteer-run space in the industrial backstreets of Marrickville. It’s a perfect fit for Cloher, who co-runs independent music label Milk! Records with her partner, Courtney Barnett. Her willingness to share with the audience comes off as an extension of that supportive spirit.

At times, the back-and-forth approaches conversation. When Cloher forgets what year her debut album came out, or loses a fact in an anecdote about country super-couple Slim Dusty and Joy McKean, she looks towards a man in the front row with an apparently encyclopaedic knowledge, laughing and joking about how he’s a plant to save her in forgetful moments.

Once she’s finished blowing her nose, she back-pedals to say the point of the story was to introduce the next song, ‘Mother’s Desk’. Most of the audience nod: they know it was written when Cloher moved back to New Zealand to look after her mum when she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. One, swaying a little more than most, yells out: “I’ve cried plenty to that song. Lots of times.”

It’s these moments of sincerity that shape Cloher’s catalogue, that fills a room on what, by September in Sydney standards, counts as a snap-freeze Thursday.

Cloher looks in her direction, says thank you, then begins to play. It’s cliché, but it’s these moments of sincerity that shape Cloher’s catalogue, that fills a room on what, by September in Sydney standards, counts as a snap-freeze Thursday.

Since 2006’s Dead Wood Falls, the Melburnian (neé Adelaide) has released four albums that centre literary lyrics without pretension, gradually becoming bolder and livelier — but it was last year’s self titled album which broke out into a wider audience. Jen Cloher is more pointed than previous efforts: as Anwen Crawford wrote in her review for The Monthly, it’s “rock music loosely played but deeply felt”, as Cloher intertwines Australia’s cultural, physical and political landscapes with her own frustrations.

‘Great Australian Bite’ is the most obvious example of this blend. Referencing the likes The Go-Betweens and The Triffids, Cloher laments the lack of support for art in this country and our tendency to canonise and celebrate what’s long-gone. Broadly, the album is a reckoning with resentment, one pressurised by Barnett’s astronomical success.

“I lost confidence,” she said at the time of Jen Cloher’s release. “Every great review from Pitchfork or public nod from Paul Kelly felt like a slap in the face. I was filled with envy and the worst thing was that this was my partner, the woman I should be celebrating and supporting.”

Those are the feelings most would hide, but they’re open on Jen Cloher. Even more so live: for this national tour, Cloher is, for the first time, acoustic and unaccompanied. Well mostly. There’s one moment where an audience member — the same person who has cried ‘heaps’ to ‘Mothers Desk’ — starts to dance a bit beyond the audience’s bop. Shorter than most, she’s on a wooden platform in front of the mixing board: her tapping echoes out as an accidental kick drum, just that tiny bit off-beat.

Even then, it’s somehow sweet, rather than annoying. As are Cloher’s long stories: throughout the gig, Cloher intros songs with anecdotes about her pre-teen love of arcade games (‘Strong Woman’), or a teenage obsession with Jim Morrison, one she felt more assured in recently when reading Patty Smith wax on about The Doors in Just Kids (‘David Bowie Eyes’).

 Cloher comprehends her pains through those felt before her, seeking inspiration and solace where she can. At the Red Rattler, it was clear it’s a two-way street.

These moments lightened some of the more sombre songs, and provided some new contexts — you could hear the audience absorb the details for their favourites. In combination with the ‘stripped-back’ sound, they also shone a spotlight on Cloher’s lyricism.

Her set-list and anecdotes were filled with references to heroes past and present, like Robert Mapplethorpe and Smith, or Kurt and Courtney (‘David Bowie Eyes’), Meryl Streep (‘Needs’), Slim Dusty and Joy McKean (‘Sensory Memory’). It’s clear that Cloher comprehends her pains through those felt before her, seeking inspiration and solace where she can. And at the Red Rattler, it was clear it’s a two-way street.

Of all the lyrics to hold onto, the one that lingers that night is from Jen Cloher‘s ‘Waiting In The Wings’, which overturns side-line resentment into cheer-leading, remembering that “to be kind/truly kind/is radical”.

While we celebrate honesty in singer-songwriters as a sign of ‘raw’ talent, Cloher hasn’t rested on keeping things diaristic or confessional. As ‘Waiting In The Wings’ reminds us, honesty isn’t a virtue of itself. To offload onto an audience isn’t artful: but to empathise and share reciprocally with an audience is, letting them rest on your own expressions.

Even when they’re tapping their feet a little out of time, Cloher leans on the audience. They lean back: the songs she sings are their own.

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Jen Cloher’s national tour continues to October 7.

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Jared Richards is a staff writer for Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Follow him on Twitter.