There’s nothing like something a little different during the week and Mojo’s is the perfect joint to provide it. Gotta love that place, it looks like its come straight off the streets of Amsterdam and the characters that frequent it would fit right in on Dam Square!

Thursday night was the second of their Campfires, Winter, Whiskey and Liars setup and for a satchel friendly $10, Mojo’s regulars and curious outsiders, eased down the cinnamon infusion that is mulled wine and sunk into the diversity of the left of centre performances that were alighting the stage.

Charismatic troupador Justin Walshe introduced the night of “songsmithery and bullshittery” and local saloon strumming duo Lazy Railway provided the first song hits for the night. Complete with a liquored up heckler somewhat defying the mellow mood of the yet to be filled bar, the lads covered some 20s and 30s southern blues tales straight outta Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Yearning harmonies and an array of strings adjusted to just the right – œtwang’, overbared the slight feedback issues that ended up haunting the bands all night and the Lazy Railway hits got the early punters to just the right high.

As more punters joined the circle, the song was passed on to Felicity Groom who, complete with one half of her Black Black Smoke, blazed up some evocative art-folk ballads and mesmerised the crowd with her naturally haunting voice. Axeslinger, Andrew Ryan, appeared possessed by the effect laden echoes being cast from his instrument, as he osmotically drifted with its eerily minimal riffage. Alex Archer added an intimidating, brooding touch to the atmosphere and the violin has never looked as threatening as it did in his hands. In contrast to this, Felicity is a bit of a darling, but don’t tell her that when she’s got a saw in her hands, which she did on a couple of occasions. With the eccentricities completed by her delicate strumming of the chromaharp and a crazy man muttering to himself and making incomprehensible scribbles on the back of old gig posters at the front of the stage, the punters took a suspicious look into their glasses of mulled wine. Hits from the Groom song, proved to be a hypnotic revelation.

But no better way to be awoken from a surreal trance like this, than by some straight down the line folk rock led by The Justin Walshe Folk Machine. The bearded one is the consummate showman and loosened up the dozy congregation, with plenty of minor based 4 chord progressions and narrations of Australia. Craig Sinclair is a fine guitarist and his precise skills with the slide were met with a renewed engagement from the crowd. The warm 3 piece harmonies – œThe Machine’ produced could have done with a better mix though, as Walshe’s commanding vocals were often too dominant. But this isn’t much to complain about in the context of the set, especially with highlights such as Phoebe Corke absolutely shredding on the fiddle and a sensitive, reflective little ditty known as Intergalactic Love Machine. This sounded inspired by such greats as Kevin Bloody Wilson’s, The Local Cop’s a C**t and gave people plenty to think about in terms of creative shagging.

Constantly heralded throughout the evening as the greatest live band in Australia, perhaps with tongue firmly in cheek or perhaps not, Wagons had a lot to live up to when they crashed onto the stage at 11:30. This band was fucking incredible. With the snarl of Tex Perkins, the hostility of a drunk Tim Rogers and the lyricism of Johnny Cash; lost and hallucinating in the Australian outback, Henry Wagons IS the figure every frontman with balls aspires to be… and he’ll beat the shit out of you for making such claims and laugh at the irony. It was hard not to conjure up images of Jack Black as he bantered at the crowd and abused the hecklers: “oh you want me to shut up and play a song? Maybe we’ll play you some Matchbox 20? Fuck you c**ts!”

Behind this facetious exterior there lay highly skilled “songsmithery” in keeping with the theme of the night and a completely natural affinity for performance. Each member of Wagons played a significant part and if just one of them was missing, the wheels would have fallen off. HA HA HA.

Man Sold hit you deep down in your gravelly smoke filled lungs and latest single Good Town was a blue grass, knee slapping jingle worthy of a barnyard shindig. The Gambler was musical fabling at its finest, adopting a rallentando in its final moments to mimic a roulette wheel coming to a halt: a simple concept yet extremely effective.

After thanking the right hand side of the crowd for “having no participation in the set what so ever” Henry Wagons and compadres bailed out… only to return, swap instruments and run through an Aussie hip hop joint.

Go see this band when they return in July and reinforce your faith in Australian music.