LIVE REVIEW: Celebrating our ‘Small Achievements’ with Ruby Fields on tour!

all photos by Max Wenke - @max_wenke

Last Saturday night, there was a crowded line outside Brisbane’s Princess Theatre, composed of fans chattering eagerly whilst actively trying to combat the winter breeze. Marking the mid-point of the Small Achievements Australian Tour, this Brisbane stop saw Ruby Fields celebrating the release of her recent sophomore album, after the success of early album singles '92 Purebred' and 'Half The Laugh'.

Opening the night was our hometown heroes, Platonic Sex. Walking onstage to the adoring cheers from a crowd of fans donning their merch, the trio cycled through releases from their recent debut album Face To The Flywire and deep cut fan favourites including ‘Exhausted Competing For You’, alongside their classic and effortlessly charming onstage banter. With crustacean-themed dad jokes to promote their new lobster themed merch and jokes about performing a cover song by “Dry Arm”, before a joyous singalong to Wet Leg’s ‘mangetout’, it was impossible to watch Platonic Sex perform without having the biggest smile on your face. The highlight of their set was when lead singer Brando took the stage for a solo performance of ‘Hanging Out The Window’, which saw the crowd at their most attentive point of the whole night.

Though I will always regard Platonic Sex a tough act to follow, especially after their performance here, Mac The Knife did more than simply rise to the occasion. Stepping into character from the moment they graced the stage, the five piece punk outfit exceeded all expectations set from their online praise. Lead singer Bryn Chapman Parish’s flair for theatrics and masterful ownership of the stage held awestruck fans captivated, hanging on to his every word. With electrifying presence, Mac The Knife engaged the audience through call-and-response sing along moments and several barrier runs, Chapman Parish entered the crowd on two occasions, sharing the microphone with fans whilst exuding pure rockstar charm. There were several moments where the band let us see through their untouchable exterior, including comments once attempting to mosh in a crowd with a patron in a moonboot, before snapping back into their act, in a performance truly demonstrative of their commitment to their onstage personas. Closing their set with the electrifying ‘Icarus’, Mac The Knife left the audience buzzing with the delivery of their headline worthy set.

Walking onstage to a chorus of ecstatic cheers, Ruby Fields and her band dove into a beautifully arranged set that covered her new album Small Achievements in full, with a few older iconic tracks scattered throughout. From the spoken word album opener ‘Dunny’ to the cathartic sing-along with ‘Half The Laugh’, it was clear from the very start of the performance how much these songs meant to the Brisbane crowd. Despite pledging to talk less throughout the tour, the audience hung on to every word of the insightful backstories Fields shared about the tracks. Taking a moment to reflect on the less-than-ideal socio-political circumstances of the modern world, she thanked the crowd profusely for making time to connect with the music and purchase a ticket, whilst the concert goers seemed overjoyed to spend a night singing along to their favourite songs.

Between a throwback performance of ‘Pretty Grim’ and ‘I Want’, the band presented Fields with two cakes complete with candles as the crowd sang ‘Happy Birthday’. Fields shared “Every time I blown out candles recently…I genuinely go blank in my mind when I think about a wish, because it feels like at the moment with what we’ve achieved…it kind of just feels like I’ve got nothing left to with for, so thank you!”.

Ruby Fields is one of those few artists who can manage the absolute feat of balancing writing an absolutely life-altering soundtrack whilst maintaining a causal and approachable demeanour. There can be a room full of people from various walks of life singing along to every word of her most confessional anthems one minute, who are then laughing at her tales from Australian suburban life the next minute as if she’s an old friend they’re catching up with at a bar. This charm strengthens the emotional pull of cathartic sing-alongs to early tunes like ‘Ritalin’, to the warmth of a comforting smile during newer vulnerable tracks including ‘The Floods’ and ‘I Miss You’.

For her encore, the crowd was given the choice between ‘Kitchen’ or ‘Song About A Boy’, two standout singles from the debut album, Been Doin’ It For A Bit. After a truly indecisive cheer for both options, the band played through both tracks before we were treated with an absolute gift to close off the night. Standing solo under a spotlight, Ruby Fields shared an unreleased (“and maybe never will be released”) track that she penned last week, titled ‘All Of Her’, Describing the track as a tender reflection on themes of motherhood, the industry, and various other topics, the vulnerable nature and introspective maturity of the lyricism felt like a perfect encapsulation of the evening.

Ruby Fields will be bringing the Small Achievements tour to Adelaide and Fremantle on the 14^th and 16^th, respectively. You can stream and purchase the new album Small Achievements everywhere now.