C.W. Stoneking- The Croxton

C.W. Stoneking brought along his all female band from recent shows in the US to play a one off sold out show tonight at The Croxton Bandroom in Thornbury as part of the Darebin Music Feast. This was my first time at The Croxton and it's a pretty big space with decent views of the stage from wherever you stand. It's nice to have a larger venue operating on the north side of town.

Considering we are so close to Halloween, C.W. and his band started off the night with the very appropriate track "The Zombie." His latest album Gon' Boogaloo was prominently featured in the set with every song off of it played. Highlights included "Get On The Floor," "Tomorrow Gon' Be Too Late," "The Thing I Done," "I'm The Jungle Man," "The Jungle Swing," "Good Luck Charm" and "We Gon' Boogaloo."

C.W. was in fine voice and told some funny stories throughout the night about his hatred of banjos, hunting for Bigfoot while in the US, his love of chocolate fudge sundaes, and even called out a heckler for arguing in the crowd. The nearly two hour set also contained songs from his first two albums, including "Handyman Blues," "The Love Me Or Die," "Jungle Lullaby" and "Brave Son Of America." The couple of times where C.W. played solo on guitar encouraged the most involvement from the crowd. "Talking Lion Blues" had everyone yodelling (and also a few stops and starts from C.W. as he lost track of where he was in the song), and the audience sang along to "Jailhouse Blues," which was the last song for the evening. It was another great show from C.W. and always a joy to get to see him play live.

Here's a live version of "The Zombie" filmed with his band a couple months ago: