Emma Stocker and the Everstars, Happy Yess, Sept 2025

One of Darwin's newest trios is Emma Stocker and the Everstars. I caught them at a very quiet "night before the Grand Final" at the Happy Yess. A real test of character is how performers perform to a small audience and Emma and Lukas really made some delightful music. I need to point out that for this gig Matt Holt who normally plays Sax in the trio went home unwell. So for this event on the 27 September, 2025; they played as a two piece.

Full disclosure, I play a little bit of bass (badly) and as a result do tend to pay extra attention to Bass and Drums in bands anyway. So as much as I was disappointed to not see Matt bringing in some sick Sax blows, it was a remarkably satisfying performance. It will be exciting to see them again as a three piece for sure.

If you have not seen the videos online do yourself a favour and look up "Chad Smith jamming with Flea"; these two members of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers have a bunch of videos of them playing together online and they are mesmerising. You can see how magically they communicate and enjoy playing together. This sort of simultaneous magick and creation was what I felt happening this night at Happy Yess. This was too very skilled musicans channelling that skill into play. The synergy was like when you see two young kids make friends and hang out together for the first time. Something pure and magical was taking place this night and it was unfortunate that there were not a heap of people there to see it. Those who were there were suitably impressed and if not for the venue needing to close we could have watched these two all night. It was a truly authentic musical adventure happening in front of our very eyes. You could see the artists challenging each other where one takes the story one direction and the other follows, with neither knowing precisely where they will end up.

Emma Stocker and the Everstars are: Emma Stocker on Bass Guitar and vocals, Lukas Lore on Drums and Matt Holt on Saxophone. Look out for when they are playing next as it is bound to be an exhilarating experience. 3 October at Bustard Town is their next gig. Hopefully I can put a link to some photos and vids from the gig on my insta:

 https://www.instagram.com/stories/nim4darwin/3733156630126390357/