Hayseed Dixie at the Esplandade Hotel
In order to be worthwhile a song has to have four things:
DRINKIN'! CHEATIN'! KILLIN'! AND HELL!
Let me get straight to the point and say that this gig was the best I have seen this year.
Where else could you see a head banging mandolin player and have the audience cheer loudest for the instrumental songs even when there were also AC/DC songs on the bill.
I know most people would have come to see the band play Acca Dacca covers but they played a whole lot more than that and also had some of the best comments between songs I have seen apart from GIT (who really play songs between chatting).
The Gershwin Room at the Espy was the most packed I have ever seen it (it took me 10 minutes to get out to go to the dunny) and I heard one comment "It's just like the old days."
It also seemed to be a somewhat older crowd to those who usually come to see bands at the Espy, which is not a bad thing as some youngsters aren't into so-called country music.
Probably the only Australian band I could compare them to are The Prayerbabies as they have a similar sort of idea (Hillbilly versions of popular songs), but a totally different execution.
Some of the stand out comments from the lead singer:
Relating to the whirlwind promotional tour of Australia -
"For us it feels like that a woman we've had our eye on for fifteen years, comes up to us in the bathroom, unzips our fly and licks our dick twice, puts it back in our pants and says 'see you in six months'"
about the audience:
"It's been a good night, but it would be better if yall be getting nekkid in a pile!"
He also did the usual 'this is our favourite city' stuff and a used the platypus to demonstrate why you shouldn't pigeonhole music in general. The mandolin player got really emotional after the encore and yelled that he wasn't going back to the US.
It was an excellent night and I would recommend seeing them when they come around your way. Now I have to pick up their CD and wait for the other three to come out in Australia.
I almost forgot, I also saw Shonkytonk and the Cliffy Davis Goodtime Band playing support. Shonkytonk where great as always but I didn't really think much of the Cliffy's (I went downstairs to see if Gazoonga Attack where still playing in the public bar during their set.)
This is a big weekend for me for going to gigs as I saw the Prayerbabies last night, Hayseed Dixie and two other bands tonight and have two others to see tomorrow - Red Hot Poker Dots and GIT.