Review: BRYCE HALLIDAY Goes Full-Steam Ahead in BACK TO BASICS at Hayes Theatre
Mix the face of Brick-era Ben Folds, with the musical talent of Tim Minchin, with the stagecraft of Ross Gellar's music career and you've got Bryce Halliday. An adorkable juxtaposition of vocal simplicity and production complexity. A comedy-jazz musician in his prime, Halliday is looking anachronistically back to bring the Hayes Theatre Cabaret audience something "basic", a mission in which he fails most sublimely spectacularly.
Back to Basics is a whirlwind, whimsical landscape through which Halliday has threaded some genuinely lovely lyrical and compositional works. Accompanied by a band with some of the best camaraderie you're likely to see, and also by his own sound engineering aptitudes, Halliday presents some of his classics "Another Family" and "I Know Better Than You Do". He also threw in some new and sensitive pieces, including personal favourite "Be Merry" that showed comedy may be his talent, but not his only talent.
With a drive that has thus far shoved him all around Australia, creating some unique projects on the way, Halliday's finest quality is his willingness to be rough-draft, to create in the moment and develop the work as he's working. It's a quality many more artists will need, and are sure to be led by his example of authenticity and pure prodigious skill where his passion lies.
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