Throwing Muses at the Corner
5 December 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Charm of Finches and A.C. Saunders.
Once again we find ourselves at the Corner Hotel in Richmond to see a Kristin Hersh project, this time with her band Throwing Muses.
The Corner I like, but it's a funny mixture of a place. Downstairs it very much fits the Melbourne rock dog aesthetic, upstairs on the rooftop it's all sportsball on TV and blokey white collar Christmas parties.
We ate yet another shrinkflated pub meal on the rooftop. It was a good steak sandwich, but the problem is that when you order a meal with chips and you need an extra side to fill it out a bit, the only obvious side is more chips (I only eat pub food at pubs, anything else seems wrong).
This is why pub menus need whitebait. If there is whitebait I'll always order it regardless of how hungry I am. It's the perfect solution to the shrinkflation problem.
Anyhow, we are here to listen to music.
The first support, A.C. Saunders, was a folk-country songwriter and guitarist who sings with a twang while also remaining very Aussie. She is a strong lyricist with a big voice and gives the impression that she was born to be a travelling musician.
Charm of Finches are a duo, sisters, doing richly and sweetly harmonised folk. They were very good too. My sister and I also used to sing together a little bit when we were at school, just around the house, which is pretty funny to think about now if you happen to know us both. If we'd gone on tour together we both would've died of murder.
Now we get to the main event, Throwing Muses, who are touring their new album Moonlight Concessions. The crowd has filled up and despite our collective experience attending the Corner bandroom we get stuck standing behind the big timber column that stands front and centre to the stage.
You have to admire the column's shamelessness at being right there. I hereby pay tribute to it in my photo for this post. But it also doesn't take long for one to declare "fuck this" and find a better position closer to the stage.
The band comprised the usual drummer David Narcizo, Kristin Hersh's son on bass (standing in for the normal bassist), and a cellist on, um, cello. A real highlight was the cello arrangements which added some understated melody to Hersh's distinctive vocals and guitar.
Having seen Kristin Hersh play solo twice recently, I have to admit that I preferred her solo. She talked a lot more during those shows and it felt more intimate. The Throwing Muses songs also seemed to have less dynamic range between them, so it felt a bit emotionally flat.
Later on over the weekend, listening to and enjoying the album, I realised that I prefer Throwing Muses on record rather than live—I just connect with the music better that way.
Falling asleep at home after the show it occurred to me that it would make complete sense to create a plasticine effigy of Kristin Hersh. I guess my frontal lobe was already asleep at that point.
