Huxton Creepers Announce 40th Anniversary Melbourne Headline Show

August 24, 2023

Huxton Creepers will take over Melbourne’s Corner Hotel on Saturday, 7th October for an evening of retrospective celebration. Singer Rob Craw, lead guitarist Paul Thomas, bass player Matthew Eddy and drummer Archie Law formed the Creepers in Melbourne in 1983. They released two albums and one EP but had split up by the end of the decade.

The original foursome will reunite for the 40th anniversary celebration. Their old pals and contemporaries Ups and Downs and Charles Jenkins will support. More details below.

Huxton Creepers – ‘Pretty Flamingo’

The Creepers members were all fresh out of high school when the foundations of the band were laid. “I recall that Rob and Paul and Arch had started rehearsing together in maybe 1982,” Eddy said in a statement. “At some point they thought they needed to get a bass player. I was definitely not yet a bass player’s toenail but I had bought a bass from the trading post for $80 so I was it.”

The played their first gig at Hotel Francis’ Venetian Room on Lonsdale Street in the Melbourne CBD. “We got the Thursday night on the back of some rough demos we cut at the School of Audio Engineering and the expectations our friends would turn up,” Law said.

The set consisted of several early compositions – ‘The Murderess’, ‘King of the Road’, ‘Slow Attack’, and ‘Part the Seas’ – and covers of the Flamin’ Groovies’ ‘Shake Some Action’, The Saints’ ‘Simple Love’, Iggy Pop and James Williamson’s ‘Kill City’ and The Stooges’ ‘Search and Destroy’.

“We got paid,” said Law. “Well, we got paid enough to buy a souvlaki each at the Hollywood Palace and that was it.”

Brisbane outfit Ups and Downs will also be celebrating their 40th anniversary on this rare trip to Melbourne, while Charles Jenkins (Ice Cream Hands, the Zhivagos) will draw from his three-decade back catalogue.