I’d heard some good things about a band called Instill who were due to be supporting Hayseed Dixie on this tour so, with that in mind, I turned up in plenty of time to check them out. Unfortunately, as is often the case, there was a different support in Scotland so instead of Instill a band called The Scruffers opened the show. The SCruffers are a local country/Irish crossover band and whilst they were ok at what they did the most memorable thing about them was the fact that the female fiddle player had great legs!

By the time Hayseed Dixie took to the stage The ABC 1 had filled up to it’s sold out capacity of 1450, thanks mainly to fact that the band have built up a varied following in Glasgow over the years with the crowd a mixture of old rockers, young students and a girls nights out complete with stetsons. This mixd audience were certainly in a party mood and that’s exactly what the Hayseed boys give you, every time. Despite their budget now stretching to a large devil’s head back drop Hayseed Dixie still have no pretensions. Wandering on stage to set up themselves dressed in their finest dungarees (which were tie-dyed in singer Barley Scotch’s case) they simply plugged in, tuned up, waved to the people in the crowd they drank with last time here and then launched into opening song.

I would imagine most people reading this review will know that what this lot do is take rock and metal songs and turn them into shit kicking bluegrass tunes. The latest album "No Covers" (their seventh) is, as the title suggests, an attempt to move away from that a little and play original songs. So does it work live? Well I’ve seen these guys twice a year for the last four years and the truth is they’ve been including more and more of their own material every year without their audience objecting. In fact a lot of the audience tonight didn’t know "War Pigs" or "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and originals "Kirby Hill" and "Set Myself On Fire" went down better. So yes while "You Shook Me All Night long" etc are still the big songs in the show it definitely still works!

The main reason people keep going back to see Hayseed Dixie is that they deliver the ultimate feel good gig. The music is great from both a fun perspective and the fantastic musicianship but, when you add in their sense of humour and the entertaining between song raps from Barley Scotch (ok John Wheeler is his real name), it’s just irresistible. Any time you look around at the crowd all you will see are big cheesy grins on people's faces and often some very bad hoedowns. This show was to be no exception and every moment of the 95 minutes the band spent on stage was hugely enjoyable, right up to the frantic finale of "Duelling Banjos". By the end the Glasgow crowd were left sweaty and tired and the few with any energy left headed off to drink with the band. If you’ve never seen Hayseed Dixie live I highly recommend you do so!

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