This past March at SXSW, Julie Byrne stood out from the crowd as one of the highlights of the week by offering a bit of calm from the storm that is SouthBy. I wrote then that it almost seemed as if time had slowed down during her set as I became focused on the mesmerising, almost meditative sounds of the songs off her latest, Not Even Happiness. And so, when given the chance to see her again in a more traditional setting less cluttered by the distractions of SXSW and a million other things happening at the same time, I gladly took it.
While that SXSW show was like a little oasis of serenity, Byrne’s Tuesday night show at The Great Hall seemed even more calm and serene. And quiet. It was so quiet, you could hear every creak of the floorboards whenever someone walked and pretty much every other little sound throughout the venue. I even heard somebody in front of me removing their gum from the package. Such was the scene where everyone in attendance was focused intently on listening to Byrne’s beautiful voice and delicate sounding songs.
Opener Johanna Warren, singing Byrne’s praises, referred to her music as being “like some portal to another dimension” and that’s as apt a description as any. For a short while on a Tuesday night, it felt as if the Great Hall had been somehow transformed into another world altogether.