Hayseed Dixie at the o2 Academy in Liverpool. January 2015. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Coming to Liverpool on the back of the immensely popular new album, Hair Down To My Grass, there is only one way to describe the banjo loving, Tennessee loyal awe-inspiring sight of Hayseed Dixie and that’s committed, unpretentious brilliance.

In a world that that at times takes its self far too seriously, that allows its self to be shaped and polluted by the inane and frequently untrustworthy, to allow yourself to give everything over to Hayseed Dixie, is to trust them with your moral musical fibre. When the music is played, not to get a reaction but to just highlight how great the melody can be, when played loud, fast and with passion, then the dissenters stutter and bemoan that the integrity is being mocked when the music lover knows the opposite is true, that is it being played with cheeky reverence and an abundance of skill.

There is no need for airs and graces, no adornment or sideshow, just four men playing out of their skins, some of the best known Rock tunes recorded but the element of mastery of their chosen speed and grace. This was a night where watching the crowd at times is as entertaining as taking in the band. Smiles are always seen at a gig, why would you be there if you weren’t going at least enjoy it in some small way, but as the songs flowed and the conversation was engaged, this was akin to being shown the peak of Mount Everest, shrouded in mystery and time and then being told there’s an escalator all the way to the top and a free bar on arrival.

Opening with AC/DC’S Hell’s Bells, You Shook Me All Night Long and what the band described as a quaint English Folk song in Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, Hayseed Dixie blew the cobwebs and shook with compassion the damp miserable lingering cold out of the crowd and made the evening memorable, warm and uniquely unforgettable.

With other tracks given the speeded up acoustic treatment, such as Eye of the Tiger, the Ace of Spades, the dynamic Bohemian Rhapsody, interlaced with Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, which not only unbelievably worked but sounded utterly compelling, their own tracks of She Was Skinny When I Met Her and I’m Keeping Your Poop and the searing, almost incredible rumbling mash-up of songs including the Eagles worldwide hit of Hotel California, Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time, perhaps bizarrely Wham’s Careless Whisper and Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb; this was music delivered with unpretentious style, a sparkle in the eye and the at ease wink which knew the audience inside the 02 Academy were not just enjoying the evening but revelling in it to the point of capitulation.

As has been noted throughout time, to play a cover is fine, it works and appeals to the well worn ear but when you give it unexpected life, when it becomes something played with a different way of thinking and presentation, then it can become the stuff of legends and accessible to a new audience.

A tremendous night out in Liverpool, it seems as though the January blues are finally being shaken off thanks to Hayseed Dixie.

Ian D. Hall