Tuneful Tunes Secret Session: The Cullen Hotel with Vance Joy

Last night we headed down to The Cullen Hotel at Prahran in Melbourne for a Tuneful Tunes Secret Session. Who could the artist be that would be featuring at The Art Series Hotel? We knew it was an Australian musician that had been freshly signed up and our gut feeling was that it was almost certainly going to be someone heading to SXSW in Austin in March.

After several incorrect artist guesses we were tipped off (thanks Mx for being unable to keep your lips sealed). It was going to be Melbourne’s up and comer Vance Joy. Fortunately for us, we had him on our must see list for SXSW in March and it just gave us another chance to catch him live and see if the hype we’d heard was on the money.

OK. So, this was our first trip to The Cullen Rooftop and it couldn’t have been a better night for it. Hot summer sunshine and a fine furnishing of local brew Golden Axe cider. I feel the need to include them in on this post as it was really that good and if you’re in Melbourne and reading this, you should check out Golden Axe and get on it.

That’s the venue and drinks sorted but what about Vance Joy? Well, we were not disappointed at all and after a 5 track acoustic set performed exquisitely it is fair to say that you should be clicking on that star button next to his name on the SXSW Schedule to make sure you catch his showcase performances if you are going to Austin. There’s a reason why Liberation Music just signed up Vance Joy.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/61337143″ iframe=”true” /]

Vance Joy started out with the track Emmylou (which you can download for free via his newsletter link below) and this was the first time we’d heard this one. It was a perfect opener to the evening. It was like a toned down Mumford & Sons track. Awesome in fact. Then we kicked into the new single ‘From Afar’ from the soon to be released EP ‘God Loves You When You’re Dancing’ which is another sensational track and it perfectly showcases Vance Joy’s talents. Then what did we have? We had a quality acoustic rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in The Dark’ which was very Dylanesque. So. That was 3 of the 5 tracks of the set in and Vance Joy had us hooked. Click (that’s the sound of us hitting the star button on the SXSW schedule). The remaining two tracks ‘Snaggle Tooth’ and ‘Rip Tide’ just continued in the strong style of the evening and Vance Joy had us hook, line and sinker.

We seriously recommend that you build the bandwagon yourself and get on it at an early stage in Vance Joy’s career as he is destined for big things if these track are anything to go by. It was a faultless acoustic set and you know you are onto a winner with an artist when there is tranceful joy on the face of a man playing his tracks you.

Check out ‘From Afar’ above, get it on iTunes and then get signed up to his newsletter below to snap up a 2nd track for free. Then make sure you put Vance Joy on Your Music Radar!