When Mick Harvey was in the Birthday Party with Nick Cave, he was the epitome of sobriety as heroin abuse, hurled bottles and general insanity erupted all around him. So it’s probably small beer for him to face a small but irritating army of chatterers who sound like they’ve stumbled in from a hen party and threaten to spoil the gig.

“We can talk as well,” Harvey tells his more adoring fans. “I’ll come out and talk to everybody, once I’ve sprayed myself with deodorant.”

While Harvey’s deadpan humour has hints of Woody Allen, guitarist-violinist JP Shilo has the brooding, pensive air of a man who shot someone before the gig and is about to be arrested. With inscrutable-looking French drummer Jean-Marc Butty, the trio could be characters from three different movies.

Since Harvey left the Bad Seeds in 2009, the multi-instrumentalist/PJ Harvey producer now stuffs shows with songs from his six solo albums, and scribbles the setlist on a paper bag. It’s an unlikely home for these darkly classic, cinematic songs that have taken something from the Cave years, and which address such subjects as the Birthday Party’s ill-fated Rowland S Howard and the suicide of a family friend.

However, Harvey’s amiable mood gradually gives the gig the warm, intimate atmosphere of a family gathering. “This is the first time we’ve worn matching shirts,” he deadpans, glancing at Shilo. “Mine’s got little skulls embroidered in the pattern … they probably look like stains.”

Meanwhile, the songs keep coming, and by time he unleashes big-hitters I Wish That I Were Stone and his sparkling cover of Mano Negra’s Out of Time Man – as used in Breaking Bad – the chatterers have been drowned out by people cheering.