16 June 2022 – Howler, Melbourne – words and pictures by Ashlea Caygill
The beautifully renovated warehouse space in Brunswick, Howler was an amazing space for UK artist Alfie Templeman’s intimate show on Thursday night. Fresh off the back of his most recent release Mellow Moon, the Melbourne crowd were excited to see Alfie put these songs through their paces.
Opening the night was Holly Hebe, musician and producer from the Mornington Peninsula. According to Hebe’s Unearthed bio, she likes to sit on her roof and write music and I cant think of a better introduction to her laid-back indie pop. Hebe introduced her set with a new song, ‘Life of the Party’, great song and a very sexy sax solo. After a couple more songs, Hebe announced that she would be “very disappointed if no one sang along…” to the next one and launched into a cover of Miley Cyrus’ ‘The Climb’, she needn’t have been concerned, by mid-song everyone in the room was singing their lungs out.
Hebe wound up her set with her two best known songs, ‘Nothing Hurts I Promise’ (on which she let the crowd know she had written on a piano that she got for $2 on Facebook Marketplace) and ‘Plastic Chairs which got the biggest reaction of the night.
The crowd began to get hyped up during the soundcheck, the anticipation for Alfie Templeman was huge! Then finally what we were all waiting for, Alfie Templeman was on stage.
Starting out his set with ‘Candyfloss’, definitely a crowd favourite with some dramatic guitars keeping the crowd momentum going and then vibing into ‘Who I Am’ and ‘Stop Thinking’ with an amazing blue laser show for great effect.
Every song was met with a big show of appreciation from the crowd, and while you might think for a 19 year old musician, the crowd would be of a like age, the crowd was diverse in age as they come (with Alfie’s dad on mercy duties!). Templeman whipped through a primer of his sound and evolution as a musician with songs such as the ever popular ‘A Western’, ‘Like an Animal’, ‘Wait I Lied’ and ‘Mellow Moon’ (the title track of his new album) but the biggest reaction with screaming and cheering was for ‘Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody’ which took the energy at Howler to the next level.
But all good things come to an end and the last song ‘3D Feelings’ was announced. Everyone vibes along, hands in the air, bopping along. Of course no show in Australia is complete without the band leaving the stage to chants of “one more song, one more song…“. The bass player when they came back shrugged, “be rude not to really...” and Templeman asked, “y’all ready?“
The two song encore had the crowd up and bopping again, beginning with ‘Broken’ and finishing up with ‘Happiness in Liquid Form’ probably Templeman’s most popular song. The evening was brilliant, great music from Holly Hebe to start up with, followed by Alfie Templeman’s infectious grooves leaving the crowd very happy.
