C.W. Stoneking- Brunswick Music Festival

The annual Brunswick Music Festival is currently happening in venues around town and tonight I attended a sold out performance by C.W. Stoneking at Estonian House. Opening the evening was Melbourne folk singer Anna Cordell, who played an ethereal sounding set on electric and acoustic guitar featuring songs from her latest album. Given the rapidly evolving situation with the coronavirus pandemic, she joked it was hard for her to avoid singing songs about sickness and death.

C.W. Stoneking came out onto the stage and started his solo set with "How Long." He played songs from all three of his albums, including favorites such as "Goin The Country" from King Hokum, "The Love Me Or Die" from Jungle Blues, and "I'm A Jungle Man," "We Gon' Boogaloo," "Good Luck Charm" and "The Thing I Done" from Gon Boogaloo. During the hour and half long set he was his usual amusing self with song intros, and handled a couple ladies in the crowd well who were calling out for him to show his ankles.

There were a few audience sing alongs to "The Zombie," "Talking Lion Blues" and "Jailhouse Blues." C.W. was only half joking when he said we should enjoy this show because after this weekend there won't be any gigs for a long time (restrictions against gatherings above 500 people come into effect on Monday). For C.W. he's already feeling the impact of coronavirus as he's had to cancel a month long US tour that was going to start next week. It is strange times were are currently living in, but he sent us out gently into the night by closing with "Jungle Lullaby."

Here's a live version of "Good Luck Charm"