Words by Erandhi Mendis //Photography by Briarna Dal Col
Without jinxing it, there’s something about catching a pop artist early – before they escape Unearthed rotation, before going viral on socials – getting to watch them play showcases and level up in real time. It’s one of the most thrilling things about Australian music: we’re quietly stacked. Over the past decade, I’ve watched names like Peach PRC, Gretta Ray, and Mallrat go from lowkey shows to sold out crowds and festivals. More recently, it’s been Blusher, Yorke and Carla Wehbe breaking out – there’s a real sense that we’re in a golden era of hyper-emotional, finely tuned pop and it feels absurd to witness it all up close.
All this to say that, two and a bit years ago we saw Aleksiah play BIGSOUND, and we’ve been watching ever since. What’s happened in the past 100 weeks has felt like mammoth growth for the South Australian popstar – and even more has happened since this winter night inside Northcote Social Club, but I wanted to immortalise why it felt special to see an artist on the precipice.
This was more than just a sold out headliner: a deeper sense that this may be the last time we see her play a room this size. I don’t throw that around often, but I think she has the years of effort under her belt to see this momentum through.
She arrives on stage bright eyed, announcing that her EP came out today to raucous cheers throughout the crowd. Aleksiah belongs firmly in the lineage of songwriters who make music that feels like it’s been passed around at sleepovers and scrawled in the margins of notebooks. The evening is a study in whatever the balance is between vulnerability and pop precision, a girlhood diary read aloud with a heart-shaped guitar in hand.
We kick off with Batsh*t, Cold and Keep My Cool – it’s fizzy, hooky and I find myself wishing we were in a venue that could handle better sound for how excellent the pop basslines are. Where there are glimpses of tight and propulsive guitar there are equally as many moments where it blurs into the sticky floorboards instead of punching through the mix. You can feel the potential humming under the surface, but the room’s acoustics can’t quite keep up. Alas, Aleksiah and her band play with the energy and confidence of playing to an audience twice the size.
‘Earlier’ work gets their flowers as fan favourites and it makes sense why Fern is her most streamed work: a deceptively simple song that is rich in feeling. Then again, I’m a sucker for a mid-tempo indie-pop ballad. As she sings “I want to keep you like a fucking collectible,” I laugh seeing a Labubu swinging in front of me in the crowd. Pretty Picture invites a really terrible anecdote about someone sharing what is in effect revenge porn – but somehow more insidious when it is anonymous. “Fuck that guy,” she says before she launches into the bitter pill.
However, for me the night was defined by a moment that felt almost too intimate to witness. Midway she warns the crowd gently: “If you see me crying, don’t look at me.” The room stills for an unreleased track called Think About It. It is a lilting ballad where the lyrics sting on contact. It is a tough listen – dancing around metaphors for self harm and spiralling mental health. The writing is relatable and in parts more inference than direct but Aleksiah burns with clarity. Some fans in the crowd are sobbing. It’s a beautiful moment to share in, the room exhales when she finishes and you can tell that one is going to be special when it comes out.
Ever the emotional acrobat, just as the intensity attempts to swallow the crowd she brings it back around with a cover of Teenage Dream, preceded by offbeat sarcasm that only Aleksiah could make sound profound: “You guys all look like stars so it felt right to sing a song by an astronaut.” Suddenly, we were in 2010 again – screaming, glittering, and collectively regressing in the best way: catharsis dressed up as karaoke.
The older I get the more I have had enough of the obligatory tease of an encore but I am incredibly excited to hear her play The Hit and Clothes Off. The only problem is that Northcote Social Club (for all my love and history with this venue) betrays Aleksiah’s aspirationally punchy pop hooks. The Hit in particular begs for more – its my favourite track of hers and feels like it belongs somewhere else. Like many of Melbourne’s mid sized venues, this room was designed for guitars and grit, not side-chained synths, sub-heavy basslines or glossy vocal layering. The low end seems muddy and without more stems to properly thicken the mix it doesn’t quite do these brilliant tracks justice. Still, she sounds great in spite of all this – but it’s like watching someone knowing they have a bigger plan in mind.
She gets the crowd low for the classic “when the music drops – jump,” moment and it becomes clear there’s an ambition in her newer material that’s itching for better infrastructure – or at least a sound system that can properly carry her vision.
In a scene oversaturated with aestheticized sadness I have every confidence Aleksiah will continue to cut through, to be honest we’ve been missing a new pop voice to take centre stage. Her launch in Northcote is bright, truthful and above all – fun.
If this is what Aleksiah sounds like on day one of an EP cycle, we should all be watching what comes next.
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