Words: Josh Ma – Photography: @JordanKMunns
There’s something fitting about Genesis Owusu returning to the Enmore Theatre, a venue he last visited with a certain infamy, having quite literally broken the floor during his previous run through Sydney. Whether that story has grown in the telling or not, it hangs in the air tonight like a dare. The crowd arrived ready to test the theory again.
The last time Sydney got a proper Owusu headline show it was at the Opera House, which felt like a statement. Tonight felt like a homecoming, sweatier, louder, and considerably less civilised. Exactly as it should be.
He enters not as himself but as the character, the pirate radio DJ, the broadcaster from the fringe. The whole set is framed as Red Star Wu’s pirate radio station, and from the jump with “Pirate Radio”, the crowd buys in completely. It’s a smart conceit; it gives the show a theatrical spine and lets Owusu move between moods and modes without it feeling scattered.
“Stampede” follows and the pit responds accordingly, with a proper head-banging opener sequence from the new record the left hand side of the enmore balcony from a 16 year old wearing his merch. Then things shift, “Waitin’ On Ya” and “Hellstar” bring some groovy, mellow warmth to proceedings, the latter bleeding between songs in a way that feels genuinely inventive. The organs on “WUTD” took the room briefly to church, pulling out an unexpected 80s glow that you didn’t know you needed. He’s got a gift for that kind of tonal whiplash, keeping you slightly off-balance, always second-guessing what’s coming next.
“Right Now Interlude” is where the room gets quiet in a different way. This is Owusu’s manifesto moment, touching on everything from the mines in Congo to Palestine, naming the weight of being alive in this particular era. It’s earnest and uncomfortable in the best possible way. Not every artist earns that space but he does. “The Worldwide Scourge” and “Most Normal American Voter” follow as a kind of political double act, and for the latter he moves into the middle of the room, surrounded on all sides, crowd closing in. It’s one of the better uses of space you’ll see at the Enmore, a venue that’s intimate enough for it to really land.
Then the switch flips again. “4LIFE” restarts the mosh, at one point Owusu shouts out Andrew Tate in the most gleefully pointed way possible, dedicating the chaos accordingly. The run from there through “Blessed Are The Meek”, “Death Cult Zombie”, “Life Keeps Going” and “Big Dog” is relentless, the band locking in tight. The KFC fans went completely feral during “Get Inspired (Remix) / What Comes Will Come”, the kind of performance that makes you stop and just watch someone do their thing.
“Don’t Need You” closes the main set, one of those choruses that has soundtracked spontaneous singalongs at every festival this summer without anyone really planning it. It’s a genuinely weird time to be alive, Owusu notes, and nobody in the room seems to disagree.
The encore brings things back to the pirate radio conceit, a reminder of the community this whole thing has been building. ONE4ALL does exactly what the title promises, before he closes the night with “Leaving the Light”, a song that somehow makes a room full of sweaty, wrung-out people feel completely still.
Genesis Owusu is one of the most genuinely interesting performers this country has produced, and tonight at the Enmore was a reminder of exactly why.
The floor held. This time.
