Vulnerability, soaring strings, and a falsetto that touched the divine.
The silence in Paddington Uniting Church felt heavy and expectant.
Then, Luke Saunders played a single clear note on his guitar.
His voice filled the space, a sound that seemed to aim for the soul more than the ear.
In this ambient lit room, the former leader of Sydney’s psych rock bands conducted a ceremony for his new life as a solo artist.
This ceremony was his debut album, Glide, Little Labyrinths, Glide, performed in full.
The songs are maps of a personal darkness, but in the live setting they became a shared journey.
Saunders stood alone at the centre with his guitar, and his performance was transcendent.
When he moved into the falsetto of ‘Lighthouse Song,’ the frequent comparison to Jeff Buckley made complete sense.
It carried that same tender ache, the same sudden soar into a fragile yet powerful upper register.
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It felt like he was singing directly to something ancient in the building.
But this was his own language, learned through grief and polished with hope. The vulnerability in his delivery left the entire audience exposed.
The structure of the show was a slow and masterful build. He started in stark intimacy, with only his voice and guitar to carry the weight of songs like ‘Soft is the Pain.’
Then, the string quartet arrived. Novak Manojlovic’s arrangement, cello and violin, emerged from the air, wrapping around the sharp angles of his guitar work on ‘Boxer to the Brink.’
What began as a confession grew into a chamber rock storm.
Being there to see it made the album’s title perfectly clear. It was an instruction he followed, and we glided with him.
Luke Saunders led us through his complex emotional labyrinths with a steady grace.
By the final echoing notes of ‘Soul Speech,’ the message was undeniable.
This was the arrival of an artist who has finished searching at the edges of a scene.
