Angus and Julia Stone, brother and sister from Sydney, Australia. The venue for the concert was Rotown in Rotterdam. More or less a year after the concert I had planned to go to, at Beck’s Verandah in Perth, but it was sold out. Being frozen in time, I was only familiar with their Heart Full of Wine EP, and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the queue outside. (Must have been because of their recent ‘hit song’ featured in a commercial.) Inside, I noticed a phenomenon that seems to be spreading fast. Notices on the door, on walls, that say: please be quiet during the show. Quite peculiar.

The stage was decorated with flowers and christmas lights and one of those old lampshades that look very shady… one of those only your grandma has, or can be found at the flea market. I wondered if they’d brought it with them from Australia and imagined the look on the faces of the Customs officers. Angus and Julia Stone came with a drummer and a base player, who were, I believe, no immediate family.

And then, there it is, I have to mention their voices. Julia sounds like she’s talking silly all the time. Angus sounds like a shy little boy. Quite different from their recorded work. Angus Stone, hiding behind his hair, hardly making a sound when introducing songs, to the extent that his shyness seems almost fake. Julia Stone, with a ribbon in her hair, fluttering around on stage, seems like she grew up in a fairytale wonderland. And that is why I am writing about them, and not about Martha and Joanna, and I must note that perhaps my judgement is jaded by a history in a land down under, but everything silly seems to make perfect sense. And their songs, about love, about people, about the world, just like a million other songs. But these are pure, minimalistic, soft, gentle. And Julia Stone plays the trumpet! Very beautifully too, it erased all the bad marching songs from my childhood from my mind.

The audience – I would say crowd, but even though it was crowdy, it didn’t feel like a crowd – tried hard to obey the notices, but there was still the sound of muffled, cigarette induced talking at the back of the room. Then I suddenly heard a new phenomenon, the “ssshhhhh” factor. People actually motioning other people to be quiet. I think you’ve got it made as an artist then. Shivers down my spine? Maybe not, but it was amazing to experience how Julia Stone could get the whole room, including those stubborn talkers at the back, to shut up, by only singing ‘daa dee dah’.

And that’s it. I have nothing left to say, because sometimes you just have to shut up and listen.

“Paper Aeroplane” – Angus and Julia Stone