Reviewed on Saturday March 28
“The Newsagency is the complete opposite of a stadium,” remarked an excited woman to my left as we piled into the underground Marrickville haunt. “We came for the early show and we just had to hang around for the late one.” Jack Carty and Jordan Millar – donning each other’s face-adorned merchandise – appeared at ease with the intimate nature of their surroundings, to the point where up to half of Millar’s support set consisted of playful heckling by both the audience and Carty himself.
This banter only added to the charm of running through the audience’s ‘by request’ list. The selections were kept mostly to requests of Millar’s own music, though the audience didn’t shy away from a few curveballs in the form of the Frozen theme (which he didn’t play) and one of his own B-sides (played, although where his memory failed, it was expletive-heavy).
Both men, having recently become engaged – not to each other, as cute as it would have been – ‘played’ homage to their ladies. Millar led the dialogue of his song ‘Advice From Beyoncé’ by recounting how a distant relative figured out what the song was referring to before his girlfriend did.
The intimate nature of the gig format allowed for a casual relaxed space that could also easily transition into a highly emotionally intense evening at the drop of a hat. Carty took us on this ride as soon as he set foot on the stage. On the night of the NSW state election, politics was clearly playing on the mind of the attendees, with his first requested song being a hilarious cover of Dan Kelly’s ‘Drunk On Election Night’. The lyrics included: “Gonna backpack through Peru / Gonna work for a time on a farm in Timbuktu / To get away from that cocksucking motherfucker,” which captured the collective Inner West emotion toward another Liberal State Government, while Carty attempted to remain unbiased in case he made anyone uncomfortable.
As he worked his way through the requests from both old and new albums, he made an effort to spend his time providing detailed back stories, which the audience lapped up. When asked to play ‘The Wedding Song’, he politely refused, stating that his fiancé will not hear it until their wedding day. The audience then playfully (yet forcefully) yelled “GET OUT!” in her direction. Laughter ensued, but it resulted in us being left teased and songless.
The evening wrapped up with these old friends staring at themselves through each other’s shirts while playing the last of the requests.
