Julia Michaels aka Sunshine Personified // Live

Hello friends!!

Hope you’re all well and having a great week.

Today’s post is another concert review. The topic of today’s post, as you can quite obviously read from the title, is the one and only Julia Michaels.

I have to be honest. I don’t listen to a ton of Julia’s music, I have some favourites that I keep in my playlists, but when she announced she’d be doing a couple of shows in Australia, it wasn’t something I jumped on straight away.

Enter my best friend Kate who loves Julia Michaels.

Kate, being the absolute legend that she is, pulled through and bought tickets to come and see Jon Bellion with me in November, so when I found out how much she wanted to see Julia, I decided to return the favour and buy a ticket with her.

Julia played on the 4th of September, so I headed to the station straight after work, doing a quick outfit change in the car before heading off, and met Kate on the train into the city. We initially thought the show started at 7, so were a bit hesitant about trying and getting something to eat, but after a later update on the FaceBook event notifying us that she’d be on at 8:45, we stopped off at an old favourite, Nando’s, for dinner.

It worked out well, as the Nando’s we ate at was right next to The Forum, where the concert was taking place. It was only after stepping out of the restaurant, that we realised it was bucketing down. Torrential rain. Luckily we were undercover, however as we walked towards The Forum, we quickly noticed the line of people waiting to get in, that curved down Hosier Lane, getting absolutely soaked.

Now, we were keen for the concert, but not keen enough to stand out in the rain, I’ll tell you that.

So instead, we decided to wait under the shelter of the restaurant that was on the other side of Hosier Lane and as the doors opened and people started moving in, hopping onto the end of the line as it passed us, spending the least amount of time out in the wet as possible.

Getting in, Kate took the opportunity to buy a hoodie from the merchandise stall, and I grabbed a drink from the bar, before we started our well practiced maneuver of making our way down the side of the theatre, into the mosh pit, and moving up from the left hand side of the mosh. I promise you, it’s worked every time. We did the same for Gang Of Youths so we knew it worked in The Forum, and sure enough, we managed to get pretty close to the front without being absolutely packed like sardines, much like the people a mere few metres away from us.

As I said, I don’t know many other songs from Julia other than the few favourites I’ve added to my playlists, so songs like Pink which she opened with, Make It Up To You, Hurt Again, Apple or Priest gave me the opportunity to really enjoy the show, take note of her amazing band and appreciate how much effort she put into the performance.

On the other hand, we had songs like I Miss You, her collab with Clean Bandit, Heaven, Happy, Anxiety, Uh Huh and my absolute favourite, Into You, where I really got into it and sang along with everyone else in the crowd.

Kate and I constantly had to comment on how happy and energetic she was. I swear to you, she didn’t walk once across the stage. She genuinely skipped every where she had to go. Even when she parted the mosh pit like the Red Sea and walked through to perform a cover of Fuck You by Cee Lo Green as well as one of her own, she skipped down through the fans and took her place in the middle of the theatre.

She of course finished on two very strong notes, starting off her encore with What A Time, originally dueted with a favourite around these parts, Niall Horan. That particular song got everyone in the theatre singing along, and we were all more than ready to absolutely belt Issues when it finally rolled around. It was a deafeningly loud version of the song, but there was so much energy within The Forum. Julia pulled a really dynamic and diverse crowd. There was a large majority of females, ranging from young, little girls to older girls in their late teens and twenties like Kate and I, but there were also quite a few boyfriends who came along, groups of guys, older families and couples, and everyone sang along super enthusiastically.

It was a very, very wholesome experience.

Like I mentioned before, her band were very commendable. They vibed with her perfectly, joining in with the choreographed dancing enthusiastically enough that it didn’t seem cringey or inauthentic, and vibing with the crowd in between Julia’s two breaks. It was overall a really positive, insanely cute concert.

 

 

Another thing that stood out to me was the amount of fans she knew by name. She called out a ‘hello’ to one as she passed them on her way back to the stage, she commented on how every time she’s back in Australia one specific fan keeps getting taller and taller and she dedicated one of the last songs to a specific fan she had spotted towards our side of the mosh pit. Like I said before, wholesome as hell.

x

Priya

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