Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Corner Hotel, The

Wow, Route 66 must've made a fortune off tonight's gig. Eight out of ten punters are dressed to the nines in rockabilly and retro gear, ready to party. The Corner is packed tight, so there won't be any jitterbugging, swing dancing, partner spinning, or Charleston-ing tonight, but that doesn't stop
people from loving every damn minute of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.

The band from Oregon (to think such a cool band came from a place called Eugene) are visiting Australia for the first time in twelve years, so they're giving the punters their money's worth. They open with Dr. Bones and the mind-numbing minutiae of my day is washed away in
a wave of smashing piano, big jazz hornes, and the smooth, swing-king vocals of front man Steve Perry (now that's two great front men in history with
the same name.)

The well-dressed musicians on stage put bands I have seen in the past to shame; big band music is difficult to perform in a laissez-faire fashion. You
couldn't perform No Mercy for Swine, as they did following their opener, in a shoegazing, bored manner while mumbling into your overgrown fringe. You need to have balls you need to have energy, you need to ahve chutzpah. And the Daddies? You bet they do.

The sexy jazz swing of Here Comes the Snake follows, and everyone in the rooms feels their pants tighten a little. Dance away the tension, peeps. It's
here I realize that being a swing/ska front man must be the most fun job in the world: dancing, scatting, singing tunes to make the folk dance . . . we
can all dream, can't we?

So Long Toots follows to rapturous applause; Perry slaps on a guitar for Soul Cadillac before leading into the delightfully werd rock and roll-y
God is a Spider. It's back to jazz with Pink Elephant, the horns of which sound much like the animal of which the song is named.

The crowd goes nutso from the first second of Drunk Daddy and, despite the limited space, tries to get as much of their dance on as physically
possible. The dark and dirty Cosa Nostra and finger-clicky, jaunty Wingtips preface to the epic Zoot Suit Riot. The number that kicked the band
into the mainstream makes the punters cheer with orgasmic glee - those familiar drums, the way the horns kick in so smoothly and Perry drawling, "Who's
that whisperin' in the trees?/ It's two sailors and they're on leave . . . " are signatures of one of the classic new swing numbers for our generation.

Though it felt as if the night could have happily ended there, CPD follows up the fiesta with the rambunctious Ding Dong Daddy and does the fated
encore fake-off. They, der Fred come back and perform Irish Whiskey and Strut before bidding farewell to us, hopefully returning sooner than the next
decade.

Share this review on Facebook