Image: The Jezabels Facebook
The Jezabels have always been proud Sydneysiders. They grew their profile cutting their teeth in venues like Oxford Art Factory, The Gaelic Club and Manning Bar before eventually working their way up to Enmore Theatre through sheer hard work.
They did all this mostly before the lockout laws were put into place and Sydney's nightlife took a hit. Sometimes it feels as if that enthusiasm that swelled when The Jezabels first started touring their early EPs is gone from this city but every so often something happens that reminds us it's there if we look for it. The entrance of the reopened Lansdowne hotel into the live music scene has injected a much-needed energy boost into Sydney's live scene and so it feels appropriate that The Jezabels set up shop in the venue for seven shows in seven nights last week. Every single night sold out and every time they took to the stage they added a piece to their own history as well as the city's.
It was precisely the right time for The Jezabels to do something like this. Seeing a band in between albums is always the best time to see them because it's a celebration of what they've done rather than promotion of new material. As such, while the band tweaked the set list for each of their seven nights, they were largely career-spanning sets that leaned more heavily towards their earlier work.
They opened the show with the soaring theatrics of 2010's Mace Spray and closed it with 2009's rumbling, emotional Hurt Me. Both songs catapulted their rise in Sydney seven or eight years ago and it felt a little like they were celebrating what they'd achieved in this city while giving back to the day one fans, many of which lined the front row of the Lansdowne. It wasn't so much an acceptance that their old material is more popular (the huge response to Pleasure Drive disproved that), it was the circumstance that made it feel right. Their past two albums have been either written or recorded overseas while the earlier releases are routed in Sydney.
On most nights they played four of five old ones straight up before launching into new single The Others which proved that while they may have grown and refined as songwriters, the same effortless feel for dramatic melodies and rousing instrumentals still define the band. We saw a number of shows throughout the week and each crowd brought something different. It got rowdier as the week went on and while Hayley Mary's flu threatened to derail an otherwise excellent week, she pulled through and didn't let it dampen her intense, triumphant stage presence. On Thursday, she dismissed a punter who interrupted her, "emo moment," to demand Disco Biscuit Love while on Sunday she rolled it out and also granted an encore of 2010's A Little Piece.
Where their most recent gigs in big venues have felt like a grand affair, there was something really comfortable about returning to a small room in Sydney. They were conversational and aware of the intimacy of the situation. It made you also appreciate more nuanced moments like Unnatural off Stamina which always felt like the smaller moment on the record. The same can be said for the beautiful, synth-heavy Angel Of Fire which wouldn't have translated as well in a big venue.
No matter what year the songs were from the band's sound is so defined you hardly noticed when they were moving between something as late as Got Velvet and something as early as Dark Storm. On that note, Dark Storm still sounds as full and moody as it did seven years ago which is heartening to see given how much the band have grown, both lyrically and instrumentally. It's hard to imagine these earlier songs sitting comfortably on the much darker Synthia but that was part of the enjoyment of the whole Lansdowne experience. You got to sit back and watch how much the band has grown while also appreciating every facet of their career.
A seven night residency may seem like the type of thing you'd do at the end of a career, farewelling the city that made you (see LCD Soundsystem) but this felt far from that. Instead it was simultaneously celebrating an extraordinary career and also marking a new chapter in a city that so desperately needs it. It's a reminder of the sort of thing that Sydney can build when it remains positive, enthusiastic and energetic about the future of live music and local artists.
