Music Features

Hayseed Dixie – Cambridge Junction March 4th 2008

Rugby reporter Steve Jackson swaps the oval ball for a function at the Junction and re-visits his rock'n' roll roots.

Cambridge resident Barley Scotch

Missed 'em ? Don't do it again! Adopted Cambridge son Barley Scotch and Hayseed Dixie ripped up the Junction with their unique hard-driving hybrid of hoedown and heavy metal – Deer Lick Holler's very own export, “rockgrass”! For sheer virtuosity, it doesn't get much better than this – geetar, mandolin, banjo, violin, acoustic bass, half original material plus classic covers and high-intensity, sweat-soaked, beer-swillin' brilliance.

Built on the highly credible premise that Hank William's Lost Highway” and AC/DC's “Highway To Hell” are, in fact, one and the same stretch of scorching tarmac, littered with the fruits of lyin', cheatin', killin' and, well, more Hell, a Hayseed Dixie show bears witness to man's need to unburden himself of the wages of sin. Largely by spending it on drink and loose women. With a bunch of guns and death and stuff. And songs about the same.

Don't expect objectivity here – I love this band. I bought the first three CDs on import from the US before they were widely available in the UK. I've bought everything since and even faked my post-code to get tickets for their Thursday night performance at the Cambridge Folk Festival.

Jake Byers rocks on

And, I'd venture to say, you either love 'em or you don't. Country-style isn't everyone's cup of moonshine but even if the thought weirds you out, I'd defy anyone not to have an 11 out of 10 time watching these boys from the Deep South strut their stuff.

There are so many reasons why this works so well. Classic covers are where it starts, played with guts and guile and injected with a seaside postcard humour that is quintessentially British in its origin.

Carry On Covers, if you will, bringing the humour in most Metal classics to the surface and preserving the power of the performance.

Stunning musical ability on instruments so totally at odds with the original material, this never fails to bring a smile to my face. If it's a bad day at Jackson Towers, on goes Hayseed Dixie.

These are no Dixie Chicks

I spoke to the mighty Mr Scotch afterward – a fine upstanding Southern gentleman, fiercely intelligent, with a wicked gleam in his eye to match his smoking fiddle arm – and said that I could think of few finer things than an audience bellowing along to an acoustic version of Black Sabbath's “War Pigs”, which even without drums still matches the thunder of the original.

He didn't disagree. As a frontman, Barley is descended from the line of the likes of Jim Dandy from Black Oak Arkansas and Blackfoot's Ricky Medlocke, with the humour of Dave Lee Roth. All delivered “raps” from the stage guaranteed to make the audience need to wring out their socks, but none had Barley's prescience and way with a tale. Totally bespoke.

There are old and new originals – the DEA-fest of “Kirby Hill”, the treatise on “lurve” that is “Trickle Down”, “Set Myself On Fire” – a warning to terrorists everywhere - plus the all-too familiar territory of “She Was Skinny When I Met Her”.

Banjo picking fun

Added to “Corn Liquor”, “Bouncing Betty Boogie”, “Stonewall Hicks” and the oft-requested, never-bettered “Poop In A Jar” this'd be a show in itself. The poignant “Born To Die in France” offsets “War Pigs” brilliantly and the choice of covers is inspired tonight too.

Cheap Trick's “Hello There”, my fave “You Shook Me All Night Long”, “I Don't Feel Like Dancin`”, “Walk This Way”, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, “Fat Bottomed Girls”, “Ace of Spades” and Green Day's “Holiday” move the show along at a hell of a lick, as it were.

It's the rabbit-punch closer that sums the band up, though – “Whole Lotta Rosie” and “Highway To Hell” itself play the band out, followed by the encore of “The Rider Song” and “Duelling Banjos”. The Reverend Don Wayne and Deacon Dale Reno's father wrote the latter, featured in “Deliverance” and deliver in style.

And to Jake “Bakesnake” Byers – thanks for the photo op ! Though “The Moonshiner's Daughter” was sadly missing from tonight's repertoire, you can't have much more fun with your clothes on. For those about to rockgrass, we salute you !