A Night That Felt Like a Baptism: Holly Humberstone live in Melbourne with Holly Hebe

There are some gigs you leave feeling like you’ve just been baptised – floating on a cloud after seeing an artist you’ve admired for so long who somehow still feels like the world’s best-kept secret. Holly Humberstone is that artist for me, and shooting her last night at Max Watts was overwhelming in the best way (I was genuinely trying not to cry behind the camera). 

The world is finally catching up to the brilliance she’s been quietly carrying all along, and as she played a string of unreleased songs hinting at a new chapter inbound, there’s no doubt she’s on the brink of explosion. 

Opening the evening was Holly Hebe, who arrived with fairy-princess energy and a soft, bedroom-pop gorgeousness that held the entire room in the palm of her hand. She was the perfect opener, pure magic, and we’ll be paying close attention to whatever she does next.

Then came Holly Humberstone.

Watching her live, it was impossible not to feel it. There’s a normal-girl ease to her when she chats to the crowd between songs, but the second the band kicks in and she dives into any one of her songs that are soul-crushing but soul-cleansing at the same time, she becomes something else entirely – a translator of feelings you thought were too specific to belong to anyone else.

She and her band played every track that has shaped her career so far, and it felt like a wave of relief, for them and for us. After a year away from touring, joy literally radiated off the stage. It felt like they’d been waiting just as long as we had to feel this again.

Spanning her full discography, the early heartbreakers, the messy mid-twenties anthems, and the new songs she’s quietly road-testing – Cruel World and White Noise hit especially hard, full of the kind of brilliant, raw lyricism she’s become known for. Her encore of Beauty Pageant was a gut-punch of honesty about the impossible standards of being a woman.

Holly’s songwriting has always felt like a lifeline, she writes about the world and relationships in ways that feel almost alien. Thoughts you’d never piece together yourself but instantly understand the second she sings them. That’s her magic.

Last night proved she’s not just stepping into her next chapter – she’s sprinting straight into it.