Jess Hutton

2 weeks ago | backseatmafia.com | Jess Hutton

I was never a scene kid, and I’ve accepted this as a huge loss on my part. I wasn’t allowed to hang out at a Westfield, nor was I on Myspace. I did, however, love my side fringe, and in 2010, I listened to Short Stack’s ‘Planets’ religiously on my mum’s hot pink iPod Shuffle. It sat somewhere between Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ and the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling’ – a deeply considered playlist that made perfect sense at the time. Short Stack were huge.

3 weeks ago | backseatmafia.com | Jess Hutton

One moment the Concert Hall was full of chatter, the next it was all brass and a single giant spotlight – Ezra Collective had arrived to perform their Vivid LIVE showcase, and they weren’t waiting around. The stage had been opened up for this one, with the audience wrapped around all sides like a sunken dancefloor, instruments in the centre and from the first note, it was entirely movement and smiles and laughter. Saxophonist James Mollison and trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi didn’t even start on stage.

3 weeks ago | backseatmafia.com | Jess Hutton

Seeing Ball Park Music feels like running into the oldest of friends, no awkward catch-up, just straight back into the rhythm. Timing still perfect. And that comfort kicked in before a single chord at Enmore Theatre last week. The Brisbane five-piece are on a mammoth, nearly two-month national tour celebrating their eighth studio album ‘Like Love’, a ten-track release that leans more stripped-back and intimate than their previous records, but still rings unmistakably Ball Park.

4 weeks ago | backseatmafia.com | Jess Hutton

It simply felt like a dream. That’s the only real way to describe Ichiko Aoba’s performance at the Sydney Opera House for VIVID LIVE. In the middle of a festival that thrives on sensory overload, Aoba offered us something slower and beautifully detached from the teeming cityscape outside. The Japanese artist had transformed the theatre into a living still life: soft lamplight, scattered florals, and a quiet rug grounding the scene in a kind of surrealism.

4 weeks ago | backseatmafia.com | Jess Hutton

It simply felt like a dream. That’s the only real way to describe Ichiko Aoba’s performance at the Sydney Opera House for Vivid LIVE. In the middle of a festival that thrives on sensory overload, Aoba offered us something slower and beautifully detached from the teeming cityscape outside. The Japanese artist had transformed the theatre into a living still life: soft lamplight, scattered florals, and a quiet rug grounding the scene in a kind of surrealism.