On the Mustang Bar’s website stands a New Year’s Eve gig poster with a sting in its tail. The ‘New Year’s Eve Punk Party – Take 2!’ features classic Sex Pistols imagery, with a tag that reads ‘Never mind last year, here’s 2023.’
The gig, starring venue favourites The Vibrolators with Miss Peta Lee, DJ Dimes, Milhouse and DJ James MacArthur, is the exact theme and lineup that would have taken place last year, before – for all intents and purposes – New Year’s Eve was cancelled in Perth due to a single COVID-19 case.
“We got locked down the week before Christmas last year,” Mustang Bar venue owner Mike Keiller reflects. “The Wednesday before Christmas Eve and we were shut all through that week. And then in the first week of January, there was sort of an easing of restrictions but as a live music venue the conditions didn’t suit, and it shut us down for a few weeks.”
So it must be rather pleasing, then, to finally put that particular event on?
“Yes,” replies Keiller, “well we don’t forget what it was like, but things are pretty good now. It was terribly frustrating, but like I say, the business has bounced back, which is good. And some weren’t as fortunate. It seems like a long time ago until you look at the P&L’s.”
Perth was pretty fortunate in terms of full lockdown compared to the rest of the country during the pandemic era, but the restrictions placed on venues as COVID-19 eventually spread through the community in the first half of 2022 made it another tough run for WA’s hospitality sector.
“We opened and then there were fits and starts, a shutdown here and a shutdown there, it was all a bit disjointed,” Keiller recalls.
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“So it really wasn’t until maybe August when we started to feel that the worst was behind us. It’s incredible in some ways that the shutdown that occurred this time last year was for one COVID case. And here we are today, they don’t even report it anymore.”
In spite of the trying times, however, Keiller is clearly grateful for the loyalty the Mustang Bar clientele has shown the Northbridge venue.
“We’ve never taken them for granted,” he says. “It’s kind of amazing that because of the variety of live gigs we have there’s a mix of old and young. The older crew might come in at 7pm and they’ve gone by 10pm but then at 11pm you see the children of these older regulars coming in. Some of them that you saw as very young kids, now they’re coming in in their own right and they’re 19-20. So it’s like generations of Mustang devotees now.
“It’s good fun to see it as well. Some of them will get jobs behind the bar picking up glasses and all the rest of it. It’s just all part of building the brand to be honest.”
The generational scenario is testament to the kind of entertainment the Mustang Bar has offered over its many years – early evening starts and Sunday sessions that have encouraged families to come to the venue with a diversity of music but especially that of blues, rockabilly, country, and swing.
“Some people say we just do the same thing week in and week out,” Keiller states. “Well, there’s no good reason to stop doing it. And also, I guess that’s what builds some of the loyalty.
“No one’s going to be surprised about what to expect at the bar. If you come on a Saturday night, you know what it’s gonna be. The earlier band might be a different band, but it’ll be in the same genre, and it’ll have that baseline of quality. So, while it’s got its tweaks here and there, it’s got a solid formula in terms of the musical genres on each night.
“It’s interesting because venues are busier across the board, generally speaking, people are coming out a bit earlier. And so some of the younger crew that would normally come in, say after 10pm are in at like 8.30pm or something like that. So they’re seeing the final set of the early band. And I think they’re surprised to see, in essence, older players really stepping up and getting a whole room involved. Like Nick Sheppard (a member of The Clash from 1983-86 who has lived in Perth since the ‘90s) and his band, people are just amazed.”
The Mustang Bar has a veritable family of musical stalwarts gracing its stage, from Adam Hall & The Velvet Playboys and The Crawdads, to Milhouse and Rusty Pinto.
“Rusty, he’s been carrying the flag for that rockabilly thing and then goes off into the sort of early blues, rockabilly style as well, like all of them. Some of these young kids never really got exposed to that style of music, and certainly not those players.
“Once a month, Adam Hall has a night off and an 18-piece swing band comes in. The Oz Big Band. You get what you see – they are Australian, and they are a big band! We’ve managed to accommodate them all sat on the stage and they’re just world class. Their opening set a couple of weeks ago when they played you would have thought you were in a cabaret room in Vegas.”
While many staff have come and gone over the years, Keiller cites Mustang Bar managers/long-termers Pat Murphy (20 years) and Jaye Gardner (15+ years) as loyal to the last.
“About two months ago Pat asked me what the plan was going forward as I am now 64,” Keiller recalls. I said, ‘I have nothing else to do and bills to pay’. So with that he said, ‘Okay if you’re staying, I’m in.’”
In 2024, it will be the 25th anniversary of the Mustang Bar. It’s something the venue will be working towards all this year, or at least certainly be aware of as an approaching landmark.
“Hopefully by then I will have won lotto and I can hand it over to someone else to take it to the 50th anniversary,” Keiller laughs. “But if it doesn’t happen, I guess I’ll still be here. And that’s no bad thing.”
