Photos and Review by Stephen Bloch
Halloween, like St. Patty’s Day and New Year’s Eve are often described as amateur nights. People bite off a bit more than they are used to chewing and often have some regretful behavior. On Halloween night at Milwaukee’s Turner Hall Ballroom, there was pro-level playing and pro-level celebrating going on as Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country made their second of hopefully many performances.
The theme was Willy Wonka, and as expected, the stimuli were plentiful. Upon entering the room, we were all given “wonka” bars and golden tickets. Security made sure we knew about our own individual prize located under the wrapper. What were we in store for? A trip to Wonkaland? An evening of shenanigans in the Cosmic Tour Bus? As was the case last year, the first set consisted of a wheel of tricks and treats with songs from Donato’s entire catalog. For 75 minutes, Donato and his band did rapid fire roulette, barely stopping for a second between randomly generated songs. Even jams made their way onto the wheel of fortune.
After a half hour setbreak, Charlie Buckets (Daniel), Willy (Will McGee), Slugworth (Noah Miller), and Mike TV (Nathan Aronowitz) came back out. Willy did his customary somersault to kick things off. Snippets of the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory were projected and then accompanied by corresponding songs. Violet Beauregard=”Blueberry Hill”>>>”Tangled Up in Blue”>>>”Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. “Pure Imagination” and “Oopma Loompa” were revisited over and over throughout the set. “Candyman” by the Grateful Dead, Down by The Riverside, Johnny Cash’s Big River, and The Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds were all covers and came on the heels of the movie scenes you would expect. The continuity of themes was expertly orchestrated and kept everyone put for almost four hours. We even got an appearance of Grandpa Joe, who clearly had too much Fizzy Lifting Drink.
I didn’t win the Strat that came with the Golden Ticket numbers, but I still came out on top. My house wasn’t tee-peed, I didn’t eat too many Snickers bars, I didn’t get wet while bobbing for apples (although my head was bobbing all night to the infectious jams), and I didn’t get a box of raisins. What I did get was an evening filled with mesmerizing musicianship and theatrical entertainment. Daniel Donato is most certainly an artist on the rise that should not be missed.
