Live Review: Mike Noga

With a couple of exceptions, Sydney is still working out the 'small bar' thing. That's partly due to the ongoing cage match between a council trying to keep some culture in the inner-city and a state government intent on selling off not only any building with human activity, but the park opposite as well, and even the bus that got you there. 

And some blame could be sheeted to the bars themselves, where the musical entertainment provided is often just to be background music to decide which single-origin spiced pilsener you want with your artisan cheese platter. But sometimes you want more than old mate yowling Dylan covers, or noodling like George Benson. Someone to entertain and engage. Someone like Mike Noga.

The random nature of a Saturday night meant there was a crowd where some knew all the words from his genuinely terrific solo work, a portion had to be told he used to be the drummer in The Drones, and a few who may have needed explaining that "See, there's a band called The Drones...". But armed with only the guitar his dad bought him, a five dollar harmonica ("Yeah, really should have got the $30 one..."), and a tambo on the floor to add occasional percussion, Noga was chatty from the little mirrored box with a disco ball that is The Golden Age stage. He offered samples of his often downbeat muse: the mortal regret of I Will Have Nothing silences the chatterers, chunks from his churning latest album King like the sadly jaunty All My Friends Are Alcoholics - always striking as an interesting choice to play in licensed premises - and "Irish murder ballad by a guy from Tasmania", Eileen.

There's also the danger and delight of such intimate venues: the punter at one of those almost-on-the-stage tables had a hiccup attack right in the quiet section of M'Belle. Noga stopped, laughed with her, and soldiered on. Or the lady further back who asked for something a bit more upbeat, and was rewarded with the swing of Down Like JFK, as the 35th president considers taking the convertible may not have been the best of ideas. 

He finished with King's closer, the human need and longing of This Is For You, and mostly everybody - even those who had no idea of who or what was on offer - considered this a good way to spend a Saturday night.