On their first joint North American tour, Aussie pop trifecta Mallrat, Allday, and Japanese Wallpaper enamoured a sold-out crowd at Baby’s All Right, a popular bar in Brooklyn, New York. The infectious energy of the trio, combined with the Saturday night excitement and the small size of the venue set the stage for an all-around memorable evening.
Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist Gab Strum, aka Japanese Wallpaper, kicked off the show with a laid-back opening set. Smoothly integrating electro-pop production with live drums, reverberant vocals, and a touch of electric guitar, Strum’s set was perfect for warming up the room, building gradually in energy as the audience trickled in. It peaked with a couple of recently-released tracks from his upcoming debut album ‘Glow’. The twinkling lights set into the wall behind him added a whimsical touch to his soaring rendition of “Tongue Tied”, which had the crowd listening with rapt attention. It’s safe to say that anyone who hadn’t come across his work previously would be plugging his name into Spotify in the near future.
“It was, as Allday put it, “fuckin’ hot in here.””
Only a brief intermission passed before Allday launched right into his set, not allowing the liveliness to stagnate for long. The Adelaide-hailing rapper (real name Tom Gaynor) was joined on stage by Strum, who reappeared to handle keys and backing vocals. The whole band was decked out in massively oversized suit jackets, and while the visual effect was certainly striking, it was, as Gaynor put it, “fuckin’ hot in here.” The lights and tightly-packed crowd had elevated the temperature in the room to sauna-like levels, but it didn’t put a damper on the proceedings. Allday’s performance was relentless; his flow was fast and seamless, and he spread his attention across the stage, making eye contact with audience members throughout his delivery.
At some shows, it’s clear that 90 percent of the audience is only there for the final act. The close relationships between the artists on this tour practically guaranteed the opposite, and Allday had large swaths of the crowd singing along to new cuts (his album ‘Starry Night Over the Phone’ was released in July) and older classics alike. “And my brother’s started smoking / his lungs are gonna be black”, the audience chanted back, as the titular lyrics of “Lungs” left the speakers.
Gaynor made sure to reiterate Japanese Wallpaper‘s credit on “In Motion”, the lead single from his sophomore record, ‘Speeding’. It was clear that most people needed no reminding; everyone in close vicinity of the stage sang every word back to him. Allday closed out his set with his breakout hit “You Always Know the DJ”, an infectious pop-driven track that had even those unfamiliar singing along to the chorus by the end. The room was even warmer by the time he walked off to heavy applause, but the suits survived the experience.
As the final act of the night approached, the anticipation in the room was palpable. When the stage was reset, Mallrat’s DJ Denim appeared and launched into a SOPHIE-esque glitch-pop intro extravaganza that had everyone’s eyes glued to the stage. At long last, Brisbane’s Grace Shaw emerged to thunderous applause, launching into a rendition of “Tokyo Drift” that had the whole room singing along from the first word. As with Allday’s set, the crowd was intimately familiar with old and new tracks alike. When she introduced “When I Get My Braces Off”, a non-single cut from her recently released EP Driving Music, Shaw was met with screams of appreciation.
Mallrat’s music speaks to a generation experiencing a disenfranchisement of the world that anyone who’s ever been a young adult can relate to, with a side of existential angst about the current state of global affairs. But this crowd came of age listening to Lorde and Lana del Rey, and the appreciation for expressive alternative pop is evident. An ode to teenage isolation and determination, “When I Get my Braces Off” had clearly resonated with her audience, as 21-year-old Shaw was all but drowned out by the collective yell of the line “when I get my braces off I’m gonna be a rockstar.” She twirled and bounced around the stage to screams of the track’s repeating chorus line of “I bet you hate what I like”, feeding off the crowd’s intensity and throwing it right back at them. A few songs later, and everyone was once more singing along to “For Real”, hollering the line back at her as Mallrat sang “and you didn’t even wanna die once this week”, holding a single finger up to the crowd.
The introduction of “UFO” garnered high excitement as well, as the audience knew what it implied; Allday featured on the bridge of the track. A murmur rippled through the crowd as he tried to sneak in through a side door to jump on stage, but his plan was foiled when the introduction of his mic blew out the entire sound system. But the audience kept singing until Mallrat and Allday finished the song out inaudibly, the speakers no longer functioning. A few restless minutes passed as they tried to resolve the situation: another event was happening at the venue later that night, and they couldn’t perform beyond their allotted time. Shaw reappeared, asking if it was anyone’s birthday, pulling someone who said yes on stage and having the whole room sing to them.
““When I’m famous, you can all say you were there on the night everything went to shit,” Mallrat joked”
Mallrat eventually re-started the show with Japanese Wallpaper in tow, performing an acoustic rendition of “Charlie”. With most of the sound system still out of commission, Strum played guitar with a single amp while Shaw sang, encouraging the audience to join her. A heartfelt tune likening her affections for someone to that of her beloved dog who stands waiting in the rain for her to come home, “Charlie” provided a sorely-needed transition into the rest of the show. The audience paid rapt attention as they obligingly sang along, and it was clear they would have regardless of Shaw’s request. The enrapturing moment was more than welcome after the chaotic turn the night had taken.
The mishaps still weren’t through, however; someone jumped on stage during her performance of “Better”, and had to be escorted out by security. Some of the speakers re-engaged, but only on the left side of the room. Nevertheless, Mallrat ended her set on a high, singing her smash hit “Groceries” in a group effort with everyone present. The communal, intimate feeling in the room more than made up for any technical issues that had driven the evening off course. “When I’m famous, you can all say you were there on the night everything went to shit,” Shaw joked as she directed the crowd to the merch booth.
With a less familiar audience, the night easily could’ve been an unmitigated disaster. If anything, however, the mishaps only highlighted the community that had grown up around the Aussie trio’s music, even halfway around the world from their original audiences. Strangers were striking up conversation and sharing numbers, grabbing cups of water for each other. Mallrat’s composure, combined with the audience’s determination to carry the show through to the end, made the evening a rousing success. It didn’t feel as though anyone had been cheated out of a good night; if anything, they walked out of the venue with some unforgettable memories and a few new friends to show for it.
Header image by Gabrielle Clement.