Outside, the lights of Vivid are throwing neon constellations across the harbour. Inside the Sydney Opera House it’s all guitars, grit and girl-gang glamour as G2g take the stage for their Vivid LIVE debut — a one-night-only show that feels more like a revelation than a gig.
We’re in the Utzon Room tonight, and I’m told it looks just as it did when it was first designed by Jørn Utzon. The space feels raw and reverent: a high ceiling with bare concrete beams, clean lines, and a wall of glass behind the band that usually offers a view of Sydney Harbour — though tonight, with darkness cloaking the city, it’s more a mirror than a window.
G2g trade in a deliciously ragged brand of post-punk that conjures The Raincoats and Kleenex but with the swagger of a 60s girl group playing CBGBs. It’s infectious, unvarnished and impossibly cool.
Formed in 2018 by Georgia Wilkinson-Derums (Body Type), Angelica Waite and Greta Balog (aka Greta Now), the band became complete with the addition of Total Control’s Daniel Stewart on drums. Their long-awaited debut LP The Gherkin has already birthed two underground smashes (Pop Song and Anthem), and tonight, the full force of that record comes to life.
There’s no ego, no spectacle — just searing riffs, off-kilter harmonies, and a band that sounds like they’ve wandered out of a punk house party and straight into Australia’s most iconic venue. It’s this tension — between the raw and the revered — that makes tonight feel electric.
Sydney’s post-punk revival has found its high priestesses. And tonight, the Opera House gets a little less polite. Check out our gallery below.
Images Deb Pelser.
