Live, from Manito, Illinois, it’s Saturday night featuring this week’s host, Fergie’s Pub and starring musical guests, Southern Cross!

Now please welcome all the way from Manito, Illinois, this week’s host, Fergie’s Pub!

For this week’s Saturday night adventure we’re taking a road trip to Manito, Illinois and the reason for this road trip is that my friend and occasional guest star on MBIP, Kevin Murray is reuniting with his band, Southern Cross at Fergie’s Pub. The last time I documented Kevin drumming with Southern Cross was all the way back in April of 2013 and you can see that post right here.

Kevin quit the band about five years ago and tonight in honor of the 15th annual Murray Fall Bash that Kevin holds with his wife, Star, he’s going to reunite for a one-time gig here in Manito at Fergie’s Pub. I took an Uber to the pub so I could witness and document this historic event and here we are in Manito, Illinois at Fergie’s Pub!

I went in and zoomed over to the bar and got served up an ice-cold bottle of Budweiser from Sarah and Kristin. The night is going great already!

Opposite the bar is the ballroom where the band is playing. There’s the crowd and the empty band stage. The show is scheduled to start any minute now!

I took some pre-show shots of Kevin with Paul, there’s Kevin’s pretty wife Star and I ran into Renee who used to be a co-worker with me!

Great to see everyone and now…ladies and gentlemen…please welcome…

Southern Cross! They sounded great and it was so cool to see Kevin back on drums. He tore that kit up and they put on a great show, as always!

As you can see, they got the crowd on their feet and dancing in a matter of minutes!

The band members in Southern Cross are Kevin on drums and vocals, Josh on guitar and vocals, Chris on bass and vocals, Ron on organ and vocals and Roger on guitar and fiddle.

Every year at the Murray Fall Bash they have a chili cook-off and this year there were thirteen contenders. The winner gets this monogrammed Murray Chili Cook-Off flask and Kevin announced the winner at the show.

And the winner is…River Rob!

Congratulations to River Rob for winning the chili cook-off! I hope there wasn’t beans in it!

Here’s the band playing another set and some of the songs they played included: Folsom Prison Blues, Margaritaville, Brown-Eyed Girl, Workin’ Man Blues and Some Kind of Wonderful. The crowd loved the music!