Live Review: Charles Jenkins & The Zhivagos, Jo Meares & The Honeyriders, Sean McMahon's Western Union

Icecream Hands veteran Charles Jenkins continues his prolific solo career with the launch of his new album, Love Your Crooked Neighbour With Your Crooked Heart, which launched at Notes on Friday night. Supporting him and his band The Zhivagos was local country act Jo Mears & The Honeyriders and Melbourne's Sean McMahon's Western Union.

McMahon's group has an obvious love for the craft and the sound of alt-country, but rather than expressing that in an effusive manner it was all very quiet and introverted and required keen attention to detail to appreciate it. They were relaxed and unhurried, and it was quite nice to be transported elsewhere for a while, courtesy of Alison Ferrier's lovely string playing and the gentle plodding of Tim Murphy's double bass.

Alas, The Honeyriders were off from the start. The mixing problems were obvious the minute the lead guitar unloaded with a lick that drowned the rest of the band and shook us out of our comfort zone (which we never quite settled back into). There was never a question of talent, and that's apparent when you listen to their recorded work. Jo's voice has a lot of character, but his wonderfully gravely, distant intonations (Bill Callahan? Tom Waits? Kurt Wagner?) were completely lost in the noise, unable to compete. No one that could do anything about it did, so it never improved. When there was a drawn-out jam or a bridge that needed some volume – no problem! But if you wanted to hear Jo's acoustic guitar or whatever he was singing about then you were out of luck.

Charles Jenkins & The Zhivagos smoothed things out with a nice set of warm, polished songs about the usual stuff (love, life, memory, etc). Jenkins is a good writer, and his work is filled with colourful analogies and sharp turns of phrase. His voice is fantastic, but ultimately doesn't work to fit the content of the song. It was the same voice throughout the entire set, for each and every tune, and by the end, despite the beautiful tone in songs like One Good Arm and My Dear Daughter, it all sounded sorta the same. Not that he needs to change anything after 30 years of playing music, but you know, the spice of life and all that.