From his tours in South Korea, Philippines and the United States, Sungha Jung has made his way ‘down under’ for his first ever Australian tour kick-starting off in Melbourne with a 2 hour concert. Making two stops in Australia, Jung graced the halls of the UTS Science block in Sydney. The well-known acoustic guitarist treated fans with splendid rearrangements of Western pop songs along with his personal original compositions from his first three albums, mainly ‘Irony‘ and ‘The Duets‘.
Fans were quick to enter the James Tatoulis Auditorium located at Methodist Ladies’ College, Melbourne. With feverish excitement the audience sat down in the auditorium with hushed silence as the curtains of the stage were nonchalantly drifting apart, as the crisp sound of footsteps on the wooden floor reverberated throughout the concert hall instant cheers of welcome and excitement were released from the audience. However once the finger style guitarist entered into his first acoustic performance the immediate silence befell upon the audience. After the display of passionate music playing, Sungha greeted the fans ‘Hello’ in addition to his signature smile, ‘This is my first time to play in Australia and I am excited to meet you all’.
The first set of the concert consisted of his original compositions: ‘Sunset in Paris’ inspired by Sungha’s time in France and dedicated to his Parisian guitarist mentor, ‘Irony’ from his second album of the same name, a walk down memory lane with ‘Nostalgia’ from this first album, and finally traversing the universe with ‘The Milky Way’. In addition, covers of well-known musicians were skillfully performed including ‘River flows through you’ by Yiruma, ‘Bird’ by one of Sungha’s favorite guitarist Lee Young Woo.
During the short 15 minute intermission, fans rushed out to buy Sungha’s albums whilst others were sharing their excitement over the passionate performance Sungha did with his custom-steel stringed guitar.
Once the audience returned hastily to the auditorium, Sungha walked out with a mini-version of the steel-stringed guitar that the audience was so accustomed to seeing the ukulele. The ukulele brought about the a rendition of Gotye’s’ Somebody that I used to know’. Followed by a comedic act performed by Sungha and his ukulele inspired by the classic game ‘Super Mario’described by Sungha: ‘This is going to be a funny song’ and indeed it was true. This particular arrangement bought forth laughter and smiles as the inner gamer within all of us was drawn to the surface by the bouncing ‘Super Mario Bros’ theme Song.
After the funny rendition Jung returned to using his regular guitar and performed ‘Phantom of Opera’ from the famed musical, however one of the biggest highlights of the night was Sungha’s rearrangement of ‘Waltzing Matilda‘. In between the acoustic performances Sungha also gave us a snippet of a song which he had worked incredibly hard on called ‘Tuning’. Other covers included the famed ‘Bolero’ and ‘Silver Wings’ which ended the concert, to the disappointment of many fans who moaned their objections. However slowly cheers and shouts for an encore performance appeared. And once again Sungha appeared to reciprocate the love and support from his fans with his last performance of Tommy Emmanuel’s ‘Guitar Boogie‘.
But the night did not end there as Sungha announced that he would be outside the auditorium to have final intimate moments with his fans. Majority of the fans immediately stampeded out of the auditorium to form an orderly line, the sound of ripping plastic could be heard coming from the fans as they rushed to prepared their albums to be personally signed by Sungha and careful unpacking of guitars and ukulele’s.
The day after the thrilling show in Melbourne, Jung stopped by in Sydney for his second and last show in his tour of Australia. The lecture theatre of the UTS science block, where the show was taking place, was packed with excitable fans and audience members. Several people had brought their guitars with them and were chatting amicably as they showed the tunes they had learnt through his Youtube channel.
Beginning with a run of originals songs from his albums “Painted Acoustic”, “Monologue” and “Irony”, I and the rest of the audience felt like we were all listening it to a ‘Studio Ghibli‘ soundtrack!
Sungha delighted the audience with a soundscape of emotional and diverse melodies showcasing dynamic control. Then, in the second half of the concert, he went on to perform more cover songs, including “Somebody that I Used to Know” and the’ Super Mario Theme’ tune- on the ukulele, no less!
During the whole performance the mood was laidback and cheerful, as Sungha joked with the audience through his breaks as he tuned, changed instruments or stood up/sat down. Overall the experience was very enjoyable and if he returns to Australia for another tour, this is a concert we would definitely recommend people go to!
Article written by: Eva
Photography by: Kathy & Ben.
Edited by: Chaima
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