Review: Gallant - Metro Theatre, Sydney

Written by: Joyee Lee

Fresh off Bluefests, Gallant performed his first sideshow on Tuesday at the Metro Theatre – originally at the Oxford Art Factory after a venue change due to higher demand. Within half hour timeframe between the last song and for Gallant to come on stage, the venue was already at near capacity and the intermission songs were getting the crowd hyped as each song plays.

Finally, the light dims and the songs fade away, until the band members start coming on stage one by one, which the crowd went wild and only got louder until Gallant came on. The energy in the room has never been so electric between Gallant and the crowd. He has all their hearts in the palm of his hands within seconds and immediately explodes all of them as he starts his first song.

His stage performance and charisma is absolutely hypnotizing and entrancing. The stage was set up almost like a music video, where they had plants on one end and a little reading nook in the other corner with a big comfy chair, a bookshelf and a side lamp all sitting on top of a rug. When you watched Gallant, you don’t watch an artist just singing on stage; it was a different level of entertainment. You wouldn’t want to take your eyes off him in fear of missing something critical, but couldn’t shift your focus if you wanted to anyway.

His ‘eccentric’ dancing (as I overhead some call it) was a little aggressive but it played into the music well; conveying a sense of emotion within each movement that he was trying to express. However, as mentioned from the interview a month ago, his performance depends on the crowd and the louder the crowd cheered, the bigger his motions were. The light show that accompanied his performance was also dynamite, setting the mood for the different songs as Gallant took us on an emotional roller-coaster ride with each song.

The first few bars of ‘Cave me in’ started to transition into the main speakers, the crowd started yelling and screaming, immediately jumping in to sing with him as he sings each word with such soul and passion. After singing his own verses and some smooth guitar solos, it immediately transitioned into Miyazaki which again, the crowd went mental.

A dedicated fan couldn’t be in Sydney at the time, therefore if their friends were willing to facetime them during the concert, you know it’s impossible not to say it’s a great concert – they even danced along during “Episode”. Each time Gallant would hit those falsettos so accurately as you hear on his album – and more powerful than the next, to put it in the words that was overheard “how does he do that so accurately every time”.

As it coming to the end of the concert, the familiar bass lines for “Weight in Gold” plays and immediately a sea of phones and cameras went up to capture this magical moment. As Gallant sang with more passion and soul, the louder the crowd sang with him. And as the song comes to near and end, he slowly teases the crowd by walking around the stage, picking up a book to read, then over to the plant and watering them. Then just as he’s shy going off stage, pauses a moment – lingering in the moment as all eyes are on him and walks off stage. The crowd goes wild and chants ‘one more song’ and he delivers –ran out of the side of the stage and finished singing “Weight in Gold” with more ferocity and passion that I have seen any artist put in before.  

The entire concert and album is an emotional journey that once started cannot be stopped.