They came, they saw, they conquered! Sofi Tukker returned to Melbourne last night and it was glorious.
After the downfall of not being able to play Splendour In The Grass on Friday due to the extreme weather conditions, they brought their Wet Tennis tour A-Game to The Forum Melbourne and blew the roof off of the house to an enchanted sold out crowd.
The last time Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern (aka. Sofi Tukker) toured Australia was back in 2019 when they played The Corner Hotel. Shortly afterwards at a following show, Sophie broke her foot onstage. That led to Sofi Tukker canceling the remainder of the tour. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the bad luck had returned to haunt them after Friday’s cancellation. The band found out their show was cancelled whilst enroute and only 3 minutes away from Splendour after travelling from Tomorrowland in Belgium. No negative energy was on show at The Forum on Saturday night. The set list was a killer selection from their impressive repertoire going back to their first album Treehouse, all the way up to todays’s hits from their new Wet Tennis album.
It is fair to say the crowd were in the palm of their hand from the outset when the gig kicked off with ‘Energia’, ‘Best Friend’ and ‘Original sin’. ‘Emergency (based on the foot injury incident) and ‘Fuck They’ were standout moments when the crowd were bouncing around with joy. No signs of social distancing and to be fair, how could you not have fun when this infectious duo and dancers are on show and in their prime.
We have been following the delights of Sofi Tukker since they released their debut EP, Soft Animals on July 8, 2016 which featured the song ‘Drinkee’ which was nominated for a 2017 Grammy for Best Dance Recording. It is quite special to see how far this duo have come both on record and through their live shows. The Splendour crowd definitely missed out on a great show. Fortunately for Melbourne’s fans, they did not.
Next stop on the tour is Sydney (they were leaving the airport to travel at 6.45am in the morning the last time I checked) and I’m sure after a nap and a recharge they’ll be serving up another special gig for those Sydney’siders.
