Last time I saw Goldfrapp was at the Glastonbury Festival in 2004. Then, the band – dressed entirely in black – was accompanied by neon strip lighting, fireworks and gyrating dancers with horses’ tails. It was a performance entirely fitting for the raunchy electro sound that dominated their set on that occasion.
It’s a very different Goldfrapp that takes the stage tonight, in a very different venue. Here, in the grand and austere setting of the Sydney Opera House, Goldfrapp, dressed entirely in white, are accompanied not by dancers but by a 14-piece string section (including two harps!), with a stage set consisting of bunting and a maypole.
To begin with, at least, the sound of the band is equally different. The early part of the set mainly consists of Goldfrapp’s gentler, folkier side, with material drawn primarily from this year’s Seventh Tree album, alongside a couple of numbers from their equally mellow 2000 debut, Felt Mountain. It’s these tracks that made best use of the string section, magnificently accompanying Alison Goldfrapp’s remarkable voice, which could hold its own against any that has graced this Opera House stage.
The singer is clearly a little overawed with the venue. Her first words of the evening are “This is extraordinary,” later telling the near-sell-out crowd, “We’ve been building up to this show for a very long time… and we’re finally here!” Nerves are clearly on show, but equally evident is the desire to give the audience a performance worthy of the setting.
As the set progresses, it’s the singles from the second and third albums that come to the fore: the big, sexy, glam stomps for which the band are still best known. And it’s these songs that get the majority of the crowd rising from their seats and dancing, doing their best to raise the most famous roof in the world. On Train and Strict Machine, guitars and keyboards are swapped for keytars, and the likes of Ooh La La and Number One invoke mass sing-alongs.
Goldfrapp thrilled the crowd of Australia’s most prestigious venue tonight, and, with a headline spot at the Parklife festival over the weekend, demonstrated that they are one of the few bands equally at home in a field as they are in an Opera House.
