Live Review: Mick Harvey

The Fremantle Arts Centres annual Sonic Sessions have become one of the most unique and engaging music events in the country, bringing together fascinating musicians in a personal format whilst entrenched in the majesty of the historic Arts Centre courtyard.

It was no surprise to see that the anxious fidgeting of the crowd as they sat on the plastic chairs waiting for Mick Harvey to take up his position on the stage, and all anxiety quickly melted away to awe as he opened the night through the sounds of The Ballad Of Jay Givens. Drenched in Australiana and heartbreaking at its core, the three minutes felt like a personification of Harvey's musical career himself as he peeled the song back with the lap steel of Lucky Oceans and the bass rhythm of JP Shilo.

Harvey's humour and sidestepping of the 'serious' nature of his musical endeavours was on parade under the questioning of Oceans, with a sly smirk and dry wit he offered jokes for most but also a brief look behind the curtain at the inside workings with The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds. Telling stories of an extremely humble with somewhat happenstance beginnings, trips to Berlin, a show in Athens, a tour of New York that may be very contradictory to the version of events from Roland S Howard, and strangely enough even a brief cover of Bootylicious.

All of Harvey's humour and storytelling charisma was of course paired with a biographical music journey through the years also. Ranging from the outlandish and almost tongue in cheek acoustic rendition of The Birthday Party's Release The Bats to the spine-tingling Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' The Mercy Seat and his wonderful collaboration with PJ Harvey for The Colour Of The Earth.

This was a rare and intimate set that gave insight and a renewed appreciation for the musical legacy that Mick Harvey has etched for himself. Complete with albeit roughly rehearsed renditions of songs simply adding to the raw nature and characteristic performance from of the man, and giving fans two and a half hours that may never repeat.