Australia’s newest Bluegrass & Old Time venue, the Yinnar Hotel in Gippsland, played host to the Strzelecki Stringbuster’s final End Of Month show for 2011 last week. Joining the boys this month were Coolgrass, who made the trek down the highway from Melbourne to entertain the crowd with their unique and irreverent take on Bluegrass, fresh from Harrietville, and a recent 3 week New Zealand tour.
The evening commenced with the Stringbusters performing a set of tunes harvested from their 3 CD releases, with the boys joined by Neville Boothman (father of Stringbuster Danny) for the last tune when he performed ‘Dark As A Dungeon’ as a tribute to the lives lost in NZ’s recent mining tragedy.
Coolgrass then took the stage for 2 full sets of tunes that had the crowd in stitches by the end, with Bruce getting into his comfortable Dr Frank-n-Furter attire for the ‘Time Warp’ finale. Only several acts over the past 3 years has moved the audience to dance, and Coolgrass can now lay claim to being one of those. A rare achievement indeed. It’s also worth remembering too that, whilst Coolgrass are the undisputed Australian kings of Bluegrass comedy, they are also individually 1st class muso’s and provided a great performance for the aficionado’s as well.
James Smee from the Stringbusters also went to the trouble of constructing a mock Marshall amplifier stack to compliment Jim Golding’s hard-rockin’ banjo segment of their show, which was duly donated to compliment Coolgrass’ large array of props.
The evening conlcuded with the now traditional ‘all in’ session, with both bands playing Angeline The Baker, You Are My Sunshine & Hot Corn Cold Corn to a rousing response.
Stay tuned for coming news of the Strzelecki Stringbuster’s exciting 2011 guest line-up.
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