All things counter, original, spare, strange....

Well, I’ve just been to probably my best gig of 2005 (so far at least). Four guys playing the most incredible bluegrass: Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Duelling Banjos, the works. And of course they finished with “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”.

Except they didn’t: that was their final encore. They actually finished with “Highway To Hell”, because this was Hayseed Dixie, the group whose Unique Selling Point is their cover versions of heavy metal classics. Yes, I know, the joke ought to wear thin after a couple of numbers, but it doesn’t, mostly because they do the covers with such utter panache that you stop thinking of them as jokes at all.

OK. Let’s back up and do the gig in order. It was at Studio 24, a small Edinburgh venue I hadn’t been to before but which seemed pretty well-organised. The support were Canadian, from Nova Scotia: Matt Mays and El Torpedo. They sound rather like Roger McGuinn, with the odd side order of Neil Young or Springsteen, and they were damned good. Put it this way, before posting this I ordered their CD from Amazon.

Hayseed Dixie (well, what else do you call a bluegrass outfit who started out doing AC/DC covers?) are technically hugely accomplished. They are a four-piece: Barly Scotch, aka John Wheeler (lead vocal/guitar/fiddle); Dale Wayne Reno (mandolin/guitar); Don Wayne Reno (banjo); Jason ? (bass). They make the bluegrass stuff sound effortless (for God’s sake, they start off “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” with the Reno brothers sharing the banjo (one hand each – something I haven’t seen since the Dubliners’ “Octopus Jig”). And they make the heavy metal sound as though playing it on a banjo is the most natural thing ever. When I first heard Bela Fleck I thought he sounded like the Hendrix of the banjo: I suppose that would make Don Wayne Reno its Jeff Beck. We got AC/DC (Highway To Hell, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Whole Lotta Rosie, Hell’s Bells) Queen (Fat Bottomed Girls) Sabbath (War Pigs), Motorhead (Ace of Spades). We had original numbers, some of them very funny (Keeping Your Poop In A Jar). And we had bluegrass classics done with a blistering nonchalance that would do Bill Keith proud.

Every night on the tour they also have an “Instant Song” slot, where they play something they’ve never played together before (hence, obviously, something different each night). Tonight Barly sprang “Eternal Flame” (the Atomic Kitten number) on them, much to the audience’s joy. I have to say they did it very well (though they ain’t as pretty as Kitten).

The other unexpected bonus was during the encores. Don broke a banjo string during “Duelling Banjos”, so while he changed it ready for “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, Barly and Dale did John Prine’s “Paradise”, which Barly described as his favourite song ever.

(An aside: I can never hear references to the Peabody Mining Corporation without thinking of the Prine song. Songs have to be one of the best ways of getting your retaliation in first with posterity. Who can hear the name William Zanzinger without “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” coming to mind? We remember the names of the “Mississippi Burning” murder victims because of Dylan’s “Oxford Town”. And so on. Mind you, Gore Vidal’s “Myron” technique runs a close second: censor all the rude words out of your story and replace them with the names of pro-censorship Supreme Court justices. Someone recalled it in The Guardian recently when Chief Justice Rehnquist -as in “Huge, throbbing Rehnquist” - died.)

Hayseed DIxie have become very popular in Britain, and have spent much of 2005 here. They are particularly fond of Edinburgh, and indeed named a piece (Blind Beggar Breakdown) after the pub where (they announced) they would be repairing after the gig to hang out with their fans, or just get drunk.

John Wheeler turns out (wonders of Google) to have a Ph D in philosophy (Kierkegaard mainly). Dale Wayne Reno and Don Wayne Reno really are brothers, and their dad was a Bill Monroe sideman credited with writing the tune that eventually became “Duelling Banjos”.

I’m just sorry not to have heard any of their Zeppelin or Darkness covers…..

Set list (not complete and definitely not in order)

War Pigs
Holiday
Blind Beggar Breakdown
Hell’s Bells
Kirby Hill
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
Moonshiner’s Daughter
Eternal Flame
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Fat Bottomed Girls
Whole Lotta Rosie
Ace of Spades
Corn Liquor
Walk This Way
I’m Keeping Your Poop In A Jar
Highway to Hell


Encores:
Duelling Banjos
Paradise
Will The Circle Be Unbroken


I shall make a point of trying to see them next time they return. Go, and do thou likewise.