By Shamim Razavi
Fred again..
Qudos Bank Arena, March 12
Reviewed by SHAMIM RAZAVI
★★★★★
Assuming Fred again.. is all hype and no substance would be understandable. There’s the buzzy marketing ploy of last-minute “secret” gigs followed by this arena tour announced a week before the shows. There’s the weirdly uptight insistence on the correct rendering of his stage name complete with abbreviated ellipsis. And the Swiftie-level adulation of the million-plus who lost (again) in the Ticketek lottery.
Understandable, but wrong.
It turns out he is no anomalous pandemic-era flash in the pan, no mere basement DJ elevated beyond his abilities by social media, but rather a massive talent coupled with an uncanny insight into the mood of his generation.
Fred again.. taps into big emotions on this current tour.Credit: Brian Purnell/Mushroom Creative House
That emphasis on mood comes across in the dialogue from the stage: “How are you feeling, Sydney?” he asks several times throughout the set, though the answer (euphoric) is never in doubt. It comes across in the enormous iPhone-shaped screens behind him, displaying naive selfie-style footage of the type that fills all our phones. Above all, it comes across in the strange intimacy of his music.
Drawing mainly on his three lockdown slice-of-life albums, his trademark heartbroken vocal samples retain their potency in this heady arena party setting. They lend an emotional core to the mania of looping electronica and combine with bombastic drum lines to create a rush for both soul and body. It is as if he is delivering on the promise latent in that trilogy of downbeat recordings: one day, we will look back in joy.
There is also joy in witnessing the creation of his music on the go. To an initial stuttering sample, he furiously adds layers of loops, bass and drums as the music follows a steady trajectory to rapturous release. In this organic creative process, the audience is just another instrument - one whose exultant sound and movement he elicits with mastery.
In tapping into the inverse relationship between halting self-doubt and grand bravado, Fred again.. finds something unspoken and profound lurking beneath his generation’s deceptively shallow surface.
Fred again.. plays the Qudos Bank Arena again on March 13 and 14
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2024-03-13 00:54:16Z
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