Gordi Heals & Reveals: Live at Sydney Opera House Review
- Bernard Zuel
- Oct 21
- 2 min read
GORDI
Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, October 17
CAN SOMEONE CALL the doctor?
Though neither of them occurred during the performance, two medical episodes punctuated this show and told us something about Sophie Payten in both normal and Gordi live mode, in medical and musical personas.
The lesser of them, told in comic semi-pantomime, concerned Payten at the dentist when one of her songs, Heaven I Know, came on the surgery’s playlist like the universe was helping convince them she really was a musician. On stage, that song built from looped and live vocal layers and slowly accreting instruments until we had an alterna-choir that served as a kind of halo around the simple lines of an ending and acceptance. “Yeah, I got older, and we got tired/Heaven I know, that we tried.”
More seriously, the other story featured a patient of hers – Payten completed her medical studies during and immediately after Covid lockdowns – who confronted news of his imminent death with a level of equanimity that would be beyond most of us, leaving an impact on his young doctor. The two songs inspired by this experience were not leaden but rather a flow of warm energy that pushed everything forward and a blend of Elliott Smith and Bon Iver as pure pop immersed in hazy winter.
Around these three songs, in material that included all the tracks of her new-ish album, Like Plasticine, and scattered shots from previous releases, Payten/Gordi moved between endings and rebuilding, back and forth from thickened layers to modestly proportioned instrumentation, counter-intuitively guitar-pushed vibrant when crushed and synth-filled solemn when emotionally buoyant, and often distorting her voice through various effects as if not wanting clarity to be confused with truth.
Songs found her uncertain on questing love (“Do you care? Do you care?/Don’t make me your peripheral lover”), falling on a failure (“I made available a pEEortion of my heart/Not anymore”) and rising again on the certainty of comfort (“I know the pressure you feel seems relentless/But everything is fleeting, except you and I”). And then, closing with Can We Work It Out?, on the horns of a dilemma – ready to believe, but bracing for regret – she threw at us the bushiest and brightest song of the night with its solid propulsion and almost fizzing slices of vocals.
No need to call the doctor, she’s here.
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A version of this story was published in The Sydney Morning Herald.