27/09/2025

Folk Bitch Trio & Georgia Knight – Tuning Fork: Sept. 26, 2025 (13th Floor Concert Review)

It’s a truism but beauty dwells in simplicity. Nothing fancy as Folk Bitch Trio walk on. Three musicians. Grace Sinclair, Jeanie Pilkington, and Heide Peverelle, close friends from school days. From Naarm/Melbourne. They sound – and say they feel – like siblings.

All from musical or artistic parentage. We get fifty minutes of exquisite harmonies and straight-ahead songs traversing the contours of feelings. Just the sweet counter needed after another week in a world of chatter and chaos.

Georgia Knight

First up, though, its Georgia Knight. Walks on, takes off a puffer jacket and dons an autoharp. Holds it in affectionate embrace, whispering into the beginnings of first song Mingle. Spacious, atmospheric, mysterious sounds. Lyrics to match I’m looking for something to do/we can talk revolution/I say maybe. Something alluringly hypnotic in her repetitive strums.

A sip of red wine and onto the next, Not Bad at All. An unusually attentive crowd for a support act. Deservedly so. A performance sufficiently different that allusions don’t come easily. And maybe shouldn’t. Hints of Kate Bush maybe. Moments of Aldous Harding with more rhythm and the occasional Patti Smith howl. But very much her own voice and presence.

From Melbourne, moved to Tāmaki Makaurau. Discovered delights like The Warehouse. I thought she was being ironic but the story went on. Standing in line to pay for printing flyers she got talking to an elderly lawyer and poet. As you do in Auckland. Then a surely a first-ever Tuning Fork moment as Knight broke into reading Bernard Brown’s Respects (published, my gig-going poet-friend tells me, in collection Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems).

Extraordinary vocal range, otherworldly songs, a graveside poem. Knight takes us somewhere hard to pin down. Ends with Cut You Loose, delivered through a vintage telephone style green bullet harmonica mic. A bit raucous for my taste but certainly memorable.

Georgia’s a local now so I hope we’ll hear more of her. Maybe at The Warehouse check-out. Bring a poem and you’ll be friends.

Folk Bitch Trio

All in black. Left to right, blonde, brunette, redhead. Different in appearance, absolute unison in voice. Opening armed only with their greatest asset: voices. The Angels cover Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again in gorgeous acapella. A palpable wow factor across the audience.

Jeanie and Heide bookend the three with guitars. Acoustic and electric, respectively. Jeanie leads out with second song Hotel TV. Heavenly harmonies, edgy lyrics. I had a filthy dream/ To the noise of the hotel TV. Voices may be light, but no shying away from the dark. So too with The Actor. Astonishing harmonies replete with the lyrical barbs of an unravelling relationship.

Straight-shooting with Me-too messaging . Any men out there? Give others the space they need. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable tonight please

Live performances invariably bring surprises. Tonight for me it’s the guitar playing. No strummed accompaniment here. It’s artisan playing, helped by a top-notch sound mix: voices and instruments in perfect calibration.

And a sort of paradoxical homecoming for these Melburnians. Their debut album – Now Would Be a Good Time – was recorded at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studio last year. They offer a big shoutout to Tom Healy (Pacquin, Tiny Ruins), producer. These songs wouldn’t be what they are without Tom.

Five songs in and I’m still transfixed. No flashy stage moves. All poise and precision. Gracie in the centre, mostly hands free from guitar, moving her arms like an opera singer, creating ballet-like symmetries on stage, flopping forward at times like a let-go marionette.

Clear audience appreciation. Good to be back. I feel no one gets stressed over here. If only they knew. But maybe, yes, here is this venue is a stress-free zone and yes they are recharging us with harmony, rattled as we’ve come from an ever-clamorous world.

Suddenly it’s God’s A Different Sword, last song. Introduced with an ironic In the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, let’s go. I hear hints of Nadia Reid and Sharon Van Etten. But they own their rousing song. Send us out into the blustery night with it.

One album in hand so no need for fillers and excessive chatter. An economical set. Tight and timely to banish the work week and put all the world’s bad news behind us for a while. Exquisite but edgy. A performance not to be forgotten.

Robin Kearns

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Azrie Azizi:

Folk Bitch Trio: