The room at The Vanguard feels more like a confession booth than a concert venue tonight. The lights are low, the crowd hushed.
First up is Tom Hart of Boy & Bear and his collaborator MOU, who have just recorded a new EP together. Their set unfolds gently, a blend of shimmering harmonies and understated emotion that lands right in the chest. It’s the perfect prelude — music that doesn’t compete with the headliner, but complements it, softening the edges of the room and inviting everyone to lean in. By the time they finish, the tone for the evening is set: open-hearted, reflective, deeply human.
When Andrew Davie walks onstage with just a guitar and a quiet smile, the applause is warm but reverent — the kind of welcome reserved for someone whose songs have lived in your head for years. Ten years on from Islands, Bear’s Den’s debut still cuts deep — its songs built on space and restraint rather than volume. Agape, Above the Clouds of Pompeii, and Isaac arrive not as nostalgia but as renewed conversation, stripped to their emotional core. Davie’s voice, raw and unguarded, fills the small room in a way that feels both fragile and unshakeable.
With Kevin Jones having departed the band earlier this year, this version of Bear’s Den is distilled to its essence — a catalogue that has quietly shaped a decade of British folk.
There’s something rare about seeing a band of this emotional scale in a venue like this. Each note lands close, each lyric feels like it’s meant only for the person standing nearest the stage. When the final chords fade, no one moves immediately. It’s not the kind of show you cheer for — it’s one you breathe in and quietly hold.
Bear’s Den will play the Brunswick Ballroom in Melbourne on 23, 24 and 25 October. All shows are SOLD OUT but go HERE for Bear’s Den official ticket resale partner.
Images Deb Pelser
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