It’s been a little while since JOY. has been home to play a show, and with her new EP ‘Portal’ slated for an April 29 release the multi-disciplinary artist returned for an intimate East Coast run of shows. Closing out the tour in Brisbane at the Woolly Mammoth, it felt like a full circle moment as we stood in this exact same room in 2015 watching her open for Miami Horror.
“How you feeling? It’s great to be home” she exclaimed as she walked on stage. The excited crowd packed in as she opened with ‘ANIME’ and effortlessly segued into early favourites ‘Change’, ‘About Us’ and ‘Hooked’. JOY. has this calming aura around her that is so intoxicating to watch. Accompanied with a killer live band, the lo-fi vibes were so beautiful to watch, and was exactly what we needed on a Thursday night.
With the EP’s release date looming, she previewed some of the new tracks including ‘House’, ‘Think About It’ (which she reveals comes out next week), and recent single ‘Alone On The Moon’. After throwing in a cover of John Mayer’s ‘Edge Of Desire’ she closed out the show with ‘Smoke Too Much’ and ‘Fake It’. But the crowd hadn’t had enough yet, so they rallied together for an encore and she obliged. Admitting that she didn’t know what to play as she hadn’t planned an encore, she decided on performing ‘Waterfalls’, and they couldn’t have been more stoked.
On opening duties was rising local star HANNI, who truly is a newcomer you need to keep an eye on. Opening with ‘Talking To Myself In The Mirror’, her 30 minute set was packed with a mixture of released and unreleased indie-pop gems. ‘The Border’ and ‘Backstreets’ were the clear standouts from the unreleased selections, while ‘Rear Vision’ also had a strong hook that heard her exclaiming she didn’t like someone when she was sober.
Closing out her set with the recently released anthem ‘Undermine’ and the viral smash hit ‘Golden Eyes’, she made sure she had you knowing that she is a star, and soon you would be buying tickets to her headline show.