Wollongong’s superstars delivered a bittersweet goodbye to home.
Alternative indie four-piece Sesame Girl graced the La La La’s stage for the last time (for now) before they head to Melbourne, and Wollongong will surely miss them.
Coming off the back of their Butterfly Wing in A Silver Locket EP release on August 7, Sesame Girl embarked on an almost entirely sold out national tour, beginning in Melbourne and ending in hometown Wollongong.
The Wollongong finale ended up being more special than anyone who initially bought tickets suspected.
In an Instagram post, the band announced that members Heather Duncan and Josh Fogarty would be relocating to Melbourne, meaning this would be the last show in Wollongong for the foreseeable future.
So naturally, the Gong had to show up for their longtime friends.
In front of a hand-painted backdrop, the four-piece captured the attention of a willing crowd straight away with Butterfly Wing in A Silver Locket’s lead single, ‘Back to Texas’ for their opening song.
Frontwoman Heather Duncan greeted the crowd like an old friend, delivering jokes and other tidbits to her audience in between her signature, enchantingly soft vocals on each track.
While she requested that the crowd bear with her amidst a vocally-straining illness, it would have been incredibly difficult to notice that anything was amiss with the performance.
New melancholy ballads ‘Prettiest Girl in the World’ and ‘Kick in the Teeth’ commanded a level of reverence that is somewhat foreign to the ordinarily head-banging sets at La La La’s.
The crowd swayed to gentle guitar riffs and gut-wrenchingly sincere lyrics.
The set also included some older crowd favourites like ‘not ur bitch’ and ‘Hey x’, but the tracks from Butterfly Wing in A Silver Locket truly stood out as the crown jewel of Sesame Girl’s development as a band.
Being present at a Sesame Girl gig is a portal into the shoegaze audioscape of your dreams, evoking endless nostalgia and yearning under blue lights
‘Superstar’ finished off the set as a beautiful ode to persistent optimism from friends who love you.
The dream-pop finale had many audience members telling whoever was next to them that they were “one in a million, a superstar”.
Sesame Girl left their last Wollongong-era crowd cheering and buzzing with love, eagerly awaiting their next visit from the band from the moment they left the stage.
Butterfly Wing in A Silver Locket is available for streaming now.
