Sharon Van Etten Wanted Sydney To Know She Still Believes In Humanity
“I want to remind you that we’re still human beings and we should still love each other. I still believe in equality in this world”.
When Sharon Van Etten first steps up to the microphone, her voice isn’t much louder than a whisper. It’s an unexpected opening — for a moment, you’re left to wonder if this is really all one of modern music’s greats can muster.
But then as she wades deeper into ‘Jupiter 4’, her vocals swell slowly into the powerhouse they are on record and then eclipse anything you’ve heard through headphones before, ringing out strong, loud, and a little bit shocking. Van Etten might be here with a four-piece band and a couple of guitars of her own, but for the rest of the show her voice feels like the only instrument that matters.
The Brooklyn musician is at the Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid Live, the starting point of her first Australian tour in four years. In the time since her last visit, she’s gone back to university to psychology, had a baby, acted in the Twin Peaks reboot and, of course, released Remind Me Tomorrow, the woozy, synth-driven masterpiece she’s now touring.
It’s a return we’ve had to wait for, but no one’s happier about being here than Sharon herself. “But seriously, I can’t believe we’re playing the Sydney Opera House!” she laughs with the crowd.
Sharon Van Etten at the Sydney Opera House. Photo: Prudence Upton
It’s a good thing she is playing the Opera House, because the majesty of Remind Me Tomorrow feels made for a stage as grand as this. Over the set she’ll make time for every song on the tracklist — that means ‘No One’s Easy To Love’, ‘Memorial Day’, ‘Stay’ and ‘Hands’ as well as the singles — at points heightening the cinema by bringing out chimes or picking up a tambourine.
When it’s time for ‘Seventeen’ she sings while staring down a pair of particularly enthusiastic fans in the crowd, but no moment is more joyous than when Van Etten dances around the stage belting out ‘Comeback Kid’, light flickering on her maroon velvet suit, every inch the coolest girl in the world.
That attention to the new LP means there’s only time for a few from her back catalogue, but Sharon makes them worth it. “I have a new record out but I wanted to make sure we played some old songs for you all,” she says, before launching into ‘One Day’ from her second album Epic, later fitting in ‘Every Time The Sun Comes Up’.
“I want to remind you that we’re still human beings and we should still love each other. I still believe in equality in this world”.
But one of the night’s highlights isn’t her own work at all. Midway through the set, Van Etten sits down at the keyboard to cover a song she says is “sadly still relevant” today: Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys On Mopeds’, the protest track inspired by the 1983 death of Colin Roach, a 21-year-old black man killed inside a London police station.
“I wanted to share with you that I have a baby and I want to protect him from many things in this world,” she addresses the crowd before playing the song. “I want to remind you that we’re still human beings and we should still love each other. I still believe in equality in this world.”
Most of the moments Van Etten speaks to us are like this: to emit a prayer for the human race, or to shout out the people (her band, her tour manager, her partner back home in the States) who help her do what she does. When she talks about herself it’s with painful modesty, to joke about jet lag, or how she hopes her pants don’t split before the show is over (they don’t). Sharon Van Etten shows aren’t about self-mythologising or showmanship, but facilitating communal moments. A Drake concert this is not.
An all too short hour after getting started, Sharon exits the stage, returning for a three song encore: ‘I Told You Everything’, ‘Serpents’ and, finally, 2010’s ‘Love More’, another track she uses to get a point across.
“The next song we’re about to play is a message of love to everybody, because with all the negativity and bad news in the world today we need to remind each other to love each other,” she introduces. “Thank you all for being here and believing in humanity with me”.
With Sharon Van Etten doing the sermonising, believing is easy.
Katie Cunningham is a former Junkee editor and current freelance writer based in Sydney. She has written for the ABC, Rolling Stone, The Big Issue and more. She is on Twitter.
Photo Credit: Prudence Upton