Review and Images by Jordan Newton:
A long line assembled outside the side alley of the Metro Theatre connecting George Street into Pitt Street on Sunday night. All to see 1 person, Stephen Sanchez. As soon as the doors opened, die hard fans raced up the stairs, passed the David Bowie statue on the left and straight into the main room to secure their spot at front on the stage. It was like if Elvis was gonna perform that night.
The room quickly filled up making it impossible to get around. Where you stood is where would be for the rest of the night, otherwise you would loose it.
Opening for Stephen was GRAACE. The platinum selling Sydney based singer performed to a dimmed litted room along with guitarist Lakota Vella including tracks NUMB, Last Night, SOS and Jealous Type. It was almost hard to see from an audience perspective until lighting was fixed half way through the set. Regardless, the crowd enjoyed her positive inspiring songs that explored the topics of coming of age, insecurity and self discovery. Her songs lifted the spirits of the young teenage girls in the audience who might be going through the same thing.
Transporting the crowd back to the 1950s through Radio WWLB to a simpler time, where lies the story of Angel Face (name of Stephen Sanchez' debut album).
The album itself follows the story of a character named The Troubadour Sanchez rising to fame in 1958 after performing his song "Until I Found You" before he falls in love with a woman named Evangeline, who is the girlfriend of a mob boss named Hunter, and is killed for it.
Lit up by spotlights, Stephen appeared on the stage and sung the velvety vocals for Something About Her and Evangeline, beggining the story and bringing out his band, The Moon Crests (dressed in black suits, ties and white shirts like the Beatles).
Every song after that built up the energy of the room while the 21 year old Nashville born channelled the spirits of rock n roll pioneers including influences from Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison (covering Pretty Woman), Chuck Berry (doing his famous duck walk), Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Franki Valli and Elvis Presley (with the gyrating moves of Elvis' rebel bad boy era). So you could imagine the possessed screaming and frantic energy of the girls in the audience became when he casted his spell through his voice and moves. Feel sorry for all the boyfriends, husbands and fathers that went that night.
"Where the pretty women at?" - Stephen before the opening riff to Pretty Woman started.
The set included songs from his recently released Club Deluxe edition of Angel Face including the surfer track Howling at Wolves and off course the best songs were saved till last with hits High, Shake and the chart topper, TikTok favourite jukebox tune, Until I Found You. The song that changed his life, peaked at No.8 in Australia and reaching 960 million streams on Spotify. Not bad for a 21 year old. When asked how much that song has made him, he said "I don't know, it's enough and it's opened doors and yeah well I bought my first house in New York".
What was interesting to see was a room full of 1000 + people with 3/4 of them under the age of 18 being interested in rockabilly music or maybe just him. Holding up signs including "Our Grandma thinks your sexy! Call her?", "Can we trade rings?", "Flew in from South Africa to see you", "Stephen Sanchez is Daddy", "Girlfriend Application", "Draw/Write us a Tattoo" and "Sign My Tits?". The whole room was a mix of Gen Z and Baby Boomers which I haven't seen this much union and interest in the same style of music since I saw Greta Van Fleet at Enmore Theatre in 2019.
Stephen Sanchez & The Moon Crests pulled off an incredible performance. The Sunday night show was the first in Sydney before at Enmore Theatre in Newtown on Monday night in a long string of sold out shows across the country.
Stephen Sanchez Setlist:
Something About Her
Evangeline
I Need You Most of All
Only Girl
Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison Cover)
The Other Side
Doesn't Do Me Any Good
No One Knows
Be More
Fame or Fortune
Emotional Function
Howling at Wolves
High
Until I Found You
Shake
Special thank you to Nicole Stringer from Frontier Touring for the opportunity to photograph and reviewing Stephen during his tour of Australia.
amazing!!