Goods Lift
WA Museum Boola Bardip, 27 January 2023  

Bruno Mars Under the Stars, Adam Hall and the Soul Playboys
State Theatre Centre Courtyard, 27 January 2023  

For a show promising to be one of Perth’s most “intimate and original gigs”, there’s nothing pretentious about the staging of Goods Lift at WA Museum Boola Bardip.  

Multi-coloured lights illuminate the inside of a lift the size of a small room, adorned with a set of speakers which sit either side of singer-songwriter Angie Colman. It’s an industrial steel box, and doesn’t pretend to be otherwise.  

Credit to the showrunners: stripping back the set puts the focus on Colman’s raw vocals, heartfelt lyricism and electric guitar work. Amplified within the confines of the museum lift, it’s almost a salute to the interiority of the garage band home set-up. The WA songstress is clearly comfy with her mic, which picks up every vibrato turn and trademark Australian inflection.  

Colman plays her way through a cover and original songs navigating the uncertainties of mental health and homesickness, including her latest single Who Are You After Me? before the steel doors close and she disappears to Level 2. 

We’re invited into the 200-person capacity goods lift for a change of scenery, and the show’s back half resumes in the vicinity of dinosaurs. 

This time, it’s to the exploratory soundscapes of indie duo Grace Sanders and Ezekiel Padmanabham. Despite the expansive ambitions of the pair’s electronic rock-esque tracks, Sanders teeters between introspective and inviting. She’s a physically expressive performer with precise and ethereal vocals capable of swelling to moving heights.  

In Padmanabham, she has an apt collaborator; his sophisticated and layered production techniques enliven songs from their latest EP, nothing is personal.  

At times, there’s cognitive dissonance between the pockets of vocal intimacy and the openness of the gallery space. I’ll need to plug in my headphones and track down those moments for myself.  

If Goods Lift is cosy and interior, the mood is more upbeat and showy a few hundred metres away, under the cover of stars at the State Theatre Centre courtyard.  

Adam Hall and the Soul Playboys are practised at jazz band finesse, and the wide-ranging audience is clearly eager for Bruno Mars’ slick show tunes. The ritzy setting befits the late, date-night ambience, which opens with a rendition of 24K Magic by keys player Hans Fiance and lead singer and trumpeter Adam Hall. 

There’s a lot happening — and a lot of it doesn’t tie together.  When he’s riffing away on trumpet during rare interludes, Hall shines and his showman instincts are flawless. The same holds true for guitarist Mark Turner, bassist Andy O’Neill and drummer Bronton Ainsworth’s solo moments. 

But something about the execution of Mars’ silky hits seems to split the crowd down the middle. “Where’s my loosey-goosey 9:15 crowd at?” Hall jokes, after a foray or two into the half-sleepy audience with his trumpet.  

To the band’s credit, they whip up a small dancing crowd off to the side, and their encore performance of Uptown Funk proves to be the hit that finally gets the crowd grooving on their feet.  

Although different in style and execution, both shows reinforce the importance of audience engagement – and remind us of the musical talent free flowing in WA. 

Pictured top: Angie Colman makes the most of her unusual setting for ‘Goods Lift’. Photo: Luke Riley Creative

See Adam Hall and the Hot 6 perform ‘Hot Jazz from New Orleans’ at The Courtyard at State Theatre Centre of WA, 2-4 February 2023.