More journalism from the past.
RAIN soaked Glasgow was host to some Southern sunshine in the form of Hayseed Dixie, an Appalachian Blue Grass outfit who played the Barrowland Ballroom on Monday.
But there’s a catch, Hayseed Dixie don’t just play mountain music, oh no, they rework rock classics then thump them out on their banjos and mandolins creating a sound midway between Spinal Tap and Deliverance.
Lead singer and fiddle player, Barley Scotch explains: “The Lost Highway of Brother Hank Williams and the Highway to Hell: they’re the same damn road!” He preached to the audience before a note was played saying: “Verily, verily I say to ya’ll, there’s four key elements in any good song. Drinking, cheating, killing and Hell.”
It was then they launched into AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ with lead mandolinist, Deacon Dale Reno looking like Keith Richards’ grandfather and sounding like Jimi Hendrix on helium.
It’s not until the boys are several numbers into their set that you notice there’s no drummer.
The rhythm comes from their black and twisted hearts.
Between numbers Barley Scotch became storyteller relaying drunken escapades and the back-story behind some of the music.
He endeared himself to the Glasgow crowd when he revealed that after drinking 29 beers in a bar in Edinburgh, the Reverend Don Wayne was robbed of all his possessions except his banjo.
He said: “I guess them folks in Edinburgh wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
Thank the Lord that the good reverend knows what to do with it.
You may have made love to the world’s most beautiful women, dined in the finest restaurants, swam with dolphins and been at one with nature but no-one has really lived until they’ve witnessed a septuagenarian clad in dungarees and an AC/DC baseball cap play a banjo solo.
Bass player Brother Jake Byres may look like a bare knuckle boxer but shows a gentler side than his grim exterior suggests by offering advice to his love-lorn buddies. His words of wisdom include: “Make it so that you come out the winner” but his piece de resistance has been turned into one of the band’s greatest hits.
‘Keepin Your Poop’ includes the lyric: “I’m keeping your poop in a jar / so that when you come back I don’t forget just what you are. / I’m keeping your poop in a jar.”
This is Jake’s sure-fire way of maintaining perspective in a relationship.
For the encore, Barley Scotch led the crowd in a sing-along to The Bangles’ ‘Eternal Flame’ before playing what is mandatory music for inbred yokels, ‘Duelling Banjos’.
It may have been the East end of Glasgow, but with music like this blasting off the stage, it became as Southern as the Stars and Bars, moonshine and General Robert E Lee.
In the words of Hardrock Gunther: “I believe that mountain music’s here to stay.”
More tomorrow... (or rather, later on today...)
No comments:
Post a Comment