Live Review: Sheryl Crow & Melissa Etheridge

Opening the show with Angels Would Fall, Melissa Etheridge showed that there truly is no substitute for experience. Her energy was still as strong as ever as she belted out the tune to the crowd's delight.

She bantered with the audience about her previous trips Down Under, when Perth was still a "teeny town", and how she initially thought, "Y'all are crazy for living out here in the middle of nowhere!" But naturally, she shared how grateful she was to have been "this little [singer] from Kansas" who ended up also doing well in Australia as she segued into Similar Features from her debut album.

Etheridge set up I Want To Come Over, saying it was a "loooooove song" with her mid-western twang and joking "I'm a stalker!" as she dove into the lyrics. Punters screamed out the chorus right alongside her.

You Can Sleep While I Drive, and Chrome Plated Heart saw people swaying to and fro in their seats in time and clapping along respectively.

"Trace", the guitar tech, was enlisted to bring out a phone mounted on a selfie stick for a quick selfie video for Twitter. While he struggled to get it set up Etheridge joked that he must be thinking he'd come along to work guitars, not phones. Trace was a good sport and the "selfie movie" was completed in time for punters to start rushing the stage for Bring Me Some Water and Like The Way I Do, filling the aisles with dancing punters prior to Sheryl Crow's appearance on stage after a short intermission.

Crow's band sauntered on to the stage with Crow appearing in a black singlet with "We all shine on" emblazoned. Everyday Is A Winding Road was her opener, punters' feet tapping and hands clapping in time before A Change Would Do You Good and All I Wanna Do kept the energy up from Etheridge's set.

Crow shared how lucky Australians really were, making a play on "The Lucky Country," while diplomatically referencing the train-wreck that a certain former reality TV personality seems to be dragging everyone towards, referencing a tone of hate she had never seen before and that the President seems to be fuelling. This led into Halfway There from her Be Myself album.

Just before finishing her set, she asked the audience, "Let's go all the way back, shall we?" jumping into If It Makes You Happy, which prompted a final stage rush before rounding out out the night with an encore of Soak Up The Sun and I Shall Believe.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night in Perth.