By Jim Rowland
There’s a whole lot fun in store tonight on the south coast as hard rockin’ bluegrass hillbillies Hayseed Dixie roll into town as part of a pretty extensive ÜK tour, with colourful ÜK rock chicks The Hot Damn! in support..
The girls in The Hot Damn! certainly stand out in their bright blue, orange, pink and green stage outfits, but there’s just as much colour in their songs. The likes of ‘Can You Hear Me Now’, ‘About Last Night’, ‘Live Laugh Love’ and ‘Didn’t Like You Anyway’ are well written, punchy and catchy slices of pop/rock every bit as bright as those outfits.
The Hot Damn! exude energy from the very first moment of the set to the last and you can tell these girls are having a ball up there on the stage. It’s an enthusiasm that is infectious, and they do their best to involve the sizable crowd of early birds here tonight.
There’s a sense of cheeky fun to this band, as illustrated by their ‘hot damn’ twist on the disco classic ‘Hot Stuff’ and their cheeky ‘merch song’, a clever and unique way of pointing to that all important merch stand that keeps bands like this afloat. With a crowd funded debut album now in the can and awaiting imminent release, these girls are set to go from strength to strength this year.
Hayseed Dixie are old hands at this game now, and certainly know to put on an entertaining show in their own inimitable style. The likes of ‘Lady of the Bog’, ‘Corn Liquor’ and ‘I’m Keeping Your Poop (In A Jar)’ show that this band isn’t just about cover versions, but can also pen a decent and humorous tune of their own.
It is of course their bluegrass versions of numerous hard rock and metal classics that they’re best known for, and there’s no shortage of those in the set tonight. ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’, ‘Hell’s Bells’, ‘Ace Of Spades’, ‘(Don’t Fear) the Reaper’, ‘War Pigs’ are just some of the big hitters wheeled out tonight, and all hit the spot. Probably the two that put the biggest smile on my face are Survivor’s ‘Eye Of the Tiger’ and Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, both of which go down a storm here. Bluegrass AOR was something I wasn’t particularly expecting beforehand.
Some may regard this band as a novelty act, and it’s not hard to see why, but it takes a lot of skill and great musicianship to pull this off properly, and Hayseed Dixie are certainly a clever band. Their versions of ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Holy Diver’, whilst putting a smile on your face, also illustrate what great songs they are when stripped down into an almost ballad type bluegrass version, and Queen’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ sounds like it was a blue grass standard in the first place.
Finishing with a ‘Highway To Hell/Freebird’ fusion the band certainly put in a shift tonight with a show that’s not far off of two hours, which to be honest is just about all you can take in one sitting. Full marks for them too for giving ten per cent of their merch sales to The Hot Damn! girls for manning their merch stall during the show. Not every band would do that.
Both bands tonight contribute to a totally fun night of great quality live music.
- Photos by the author.
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