3 May 2025 – Brunswick Picture House, Brunswick Heads – words by Cecilia Pattison-Levi – pictures by Sarah Gilpin
Bachelor Girl celebrated performing their entire debut album Waiting For The Day at the Brunswick Picture House. These shows are a massive deal as Bachelor Girl will be re-imagining their debut album with ‘redux’ arrangements to keep things fresh and to bring back songs that had a massive international impact for the band and Australian music during the late 1990s. In contrast, they kept this first gig of these re-worked songs incredibly local and also brought home-grown musician Alice Night along for the journey.If you haven’t visited Brunswick Heads, you really should. It is a beautiful town and the Brunswick Picture House is a lovely venue with great food and bar. Its acoustics are terrific and the sound and lighting technician Shane did a wonderful job. The view of the stage is also great.
The evening began with the Anglo-Australian Northern Rivers based singer songwriter Alice Night. She took to the stage, solo, with her beautiful six string guitar. Alice Night stated: “I am going to play some songs for you”. And, her first song was a blast of fun “with swear words”, the wonderfully wry ‘I Hate Ukulele’s’. The song explores moving from hate to empathy and embracing our differences and that we never really know what’s going on for others in their life. It was a delightful track with plucked guitar and warm beautiful projected vocals. The kick in the narrative arc was a verse about dealing with inter-personal rage between two people at the health food shop. Alice Night’s narrative has the protagonists in the song dealing with death and personal grief. But the inherent dark humour in the song made the crowd laugh out loud and really broke the ice. And, the comment about being a “cello-person” was too funny!
The second song performed was ‘Hungry’ and it was a more self-contained and intimate track. Alice Night’s vocals had a lovely timbre and reminded me in style of the mid-1990s female singer songwriters that I loved so much. There was an interesting break in the set when a member of the audience Kate was brought up to sing: “’So you be the universe and I’ll be the girl, then I’ll be the universe and I’ll be the world”. It was certainly risky thing to do as you must be able to pick someone who can sing. But it was fun and the audience enjoyed the interaction and ‘remix’ of the song.
Alice Night – Brunswick Picture House – photos by Sarah Gilpin
The third song ‘Come To Ground’ was a really good song with a strong melody line. Her strummed guitar was very effective in the song and it provided a bigger sound. The narrative tale about leaving childhood into an adult reality was positively expressed. Alice Night’s next song was ‘Until Were Done’ and was followed by a new song ‘Wild Ivy’which will released on 23 May 2025. Alice Night delivers some beautiful singer songwriter fare with an organic style of narrative acoustic melodies “all without chords”.
After a short break as Shane re-organised the stage and lightening, and Alice Night’s support person packed up her guitar carefully, it was time for Bachelor Girl to take the stage and deliver a 70-minute set of their re-interpreted classic album Waiting for the Day.
Bachelor Girl (Tania Doko and James Roche) were joined as a band with Janine on backing vocals and synth and Karl on drums. The sound was wonderful in the venue. Bachelor Girl opened the set with ‘Don’t Hold Back’ and ‘Blind’ before Tania Doko welcomed the enthusiastic crowd to the concert: “Hello. Northern Rivers and Cabarita”. Tania Doko stated: “Okay. You are our guinea pigs – tonight – much better looking than guinea pigs” and she explained that the gig was a celebration of “James and me knocking about together for 33 years” and “writing our debut album that we want to share with you – but done different”.
Bachelor Girl – Brunswick Picture House – photos by Sarah Gilpin
Bachelor Girl did do it different and re-imagined the songs from Waiting For The Day. The set continued with a lovely new sonic palate for ‘Treat Me Good’ which had a slinky R&B vibe. ‘Mad About You’, a pop-punk ballad version of the title track ‘Waiting For The Day’ and ‘You Are Afraid’ were all reinterpreted with modern sonic musical flavours such as soul and country-tinged sounds with some ambient electronica thrown in. The songs were well known to the crowd and the feedback was positive. The crowd was having a lot of fun singing along and appreciating the new versions.
The most fascinating part of the set was the delivery of an acoustic melody of the songs: ‘This Must be Love’, ‘Blown Away’, ‘Gotta Let You Go’ and the positive ‘Permission To Shine’. What was so good about this mini-internal set was the narrative arc for the listeners in the crowd. James Roche beautifully described the cycle of romance and its breakdown as the songs follow the blossoming of first love, then the songs go through the reality of life and love that leads to disappointment and eventually to break-up and then to renaissance of a new person born out of the process. As James Roche stated about the nature of painful divorces “great for song material” but “not so good for yourself” as he called out to the positivity of being married for 20 years to his partner.
Doko had brought her outfit. They didn’t have to wait long as the band returned to the stage within a minute of leaving. Bachelor Girl, then, delivered the songs ‘My World’ as Tania Doko left the stage, walked among the crowd and sang to them. Then, she returned to the stage, and Bachelor Girl performed the last song ‘Lucky Me’. The crowd was joyful and the love in the room was profound.
Bachelor Girl – Brunswick Picture House – photos by Sarah Gilpin
Bachelor Girl delivered an honest set of really good songs for an award-winning album, and in the end, it’s the quality of the song writing and the delivery that matters. The songs are fine. Tania Doko’s voice was in top form and she looked fantastic on stage. The band sounded wonderful together. Janine, as a supporting musician, had a terrific voice that blended and was so complementary with Tania Doko’s voice.
Bachelor Girl engaged the crowd in singalongs, dancing and their performance took the crowd on the journey of celebrating Waiting for the Day with joy, love, revising and renewing it: paying the album forward with new soundscapes. It was a wonderful evening of organic music.
