LIVE REVIEW: SPACEY JANE AT THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN
I saw Spacey Jane for the first time in Brisbane, in 2018. I remember thinking ‘this band will take off because they use the stage really well. That’s a sign of a great band–they make use of the stage.’ Well, lots of nothing had changed when I saw them at John Cain Arena on the 29th of January… an early Thursday night arena show for the Australian Open.
On a stage ten times the size of Brisbane’s Zoo Bar (where I first saw them), they commanded the space. Eight years later, and playing to 10,000 more than the early days, I became fully convinced that their use of stage–along with their preternaturally hooky songs suggestive of an endlessly yearning summer–is a key reason that Australia has rightly crowned our sweethearts of 2020s Australian music.
In total, the Australian Open had 15 nights of ‘pre-match entertainment’. Spacey Jane–along with The Kid Laroi, The Veronicas, and Peggy Gou–were booked as part of AO Live, promoted by the minds at Untitled Group. AO Live stands up as a one-day festival in its own right.
Taking over John Cain Arena for four days, most of the people I got talking to had no interest in the tennis whatsoever, coming only for the music. Taking the helm in 2023, I fear there is a genuine risk that Untitled Group will get fired for being too good. After all, it wouldn’t be the best look if there’s more people filling the music arena than the tennis itself…
Spacey Jane is a band that seems to keep rewriting the path to success in the modern music landscape. They keep swerving the career tropes we love to limit Australian musicians to. When they weren’t scared of 50 gigs a year in the late 20-teens, it was ‘they will overwork and burn out’. After their monumental 2020 success with ‘Booster Seat’ (should’ve been higher), many denounced the long-term workhorses as ‘one hit wonders’.
So, they went overseas. Spending a short lifetime in Los Angeles cooking up their newest album, ‘If That Makes Sense’, the west-coast wonders opened their arms to pop influence, under Mike Crossey’s wing–with no fear that ‘popular music’ means ‘too generic’. Realistically, ‘popular music’ means ‘reletable to all’. Their approach paid dividends. In some ways, this arena show felt like a band flexing that they have proved their potential, while also giving the thousands of diehards who missed tickets to their ‘If That Makes Sense’ homecoming tour a second chance at catching them live.
Most recently they’ve taken Naarm rockers The Belair Lip Bombs (who also supported them in the arena) on tour throughout the USA. They’re really calling on the definition of a support artist - take your mates, and the best music, out into the world. You can’t deny that Spacey Jane are one of Australia’s most consistent bands of this decade. They bet on themselves to tour relentlessly, they bet on themselves to extend their reach well beyond the Australian market. For a band that’s been releasing music for almost ten years, they still maintain the subtle mystery and air of excitement of an up-and-coming band.