Live Review: Mick Thomas - Newtown Social Club

It’s a Christmas tradition dating back to his roaring days in Wedding Parties Anything, as Mick Thomas does an end-of-year lap of the country – a left-leaning Santa with guitar, having a singalong and a few beverages. 

He brings friends. Ruby Boots is from Perth, but more from the suburb closest to Tennessee. Flanked by Telecaster and a pedal steel’s wavering twang, it’s country songs of being ’10c short of a broken heart’ – or lost in the Middle Of Nowhere. Ruby’s voice longs and laments, contrasted with some self-deprecating banter. 

With a “G’day”, Mick Thomas sets various tones of the ‘festive’ season with the observations of waiting for a train on Christmas Day At Spencer St, into the snarkier no cabs/annoying relatives grump of Jolly Old Christmas Time. Tis the season.

Squeezebox Mark Wallace wrestles his piano accordion like a bloke being thrown out at closing time.

As the rest of The Roving Commission kick in, Thomas shows his knack of taking you across moods from song to song, as he plunders his back catalogues. Post-WPA era tunes such as the remembrance and roast dinner of Gallipoli Rosemary sit alongside Weddoes’ Rambling Girl and its fond recollections.  

Things arc up. Longtime cohort Squeezebox Mark Wallace has heard - probably been part of - the yarns Thomas offhandedly tells, and wrestles his piano accordion like a bloke being thrown out at closing time, as the ever-raucous Tale They Won’t Believe provokes much yelling along from the audience.
 
There’s joy and nostalgia by turns: Ruby provides the female side of Step In Step Out’s romantic logistics; and we’ve all been cold, pissed, and pissed off as those Knockbacks In Halifax. Then Mick offers that most Australian song: The Triffids’ Wide Open Road is the glory it always should be. And that’ll do. As ever, tops night out.