The Dead South

23rd February 2020

Manchester Academy

The Dead South are a quartet of personable young men from Saskatchewan who sing, what?  A remarkably effective melange of punk-attitude, folksy-bluegrass, alt-country, cousin-shagging, hill-billy banjo-plucking tunes.  Telling delightfully dark tales; each related with a twinkle in the band's collective eye.

Quite how these four Canucks ended up peddling this sort of stuff, I have no idea.  They do hail from the south of Canada I suppose.

It was In Hell, I'll be in Good Company, with its quirky video which helped propel The Dead South into the public consciousness, a few years back.  Although the band did have to navigate the subsequent temporary loss of banjo player Colton Crawford; he having succumbed to issues with “sleeplessness”.

Their Served Cold tour saw the band out and about promoting their third album Sugar & Joy.  (Which sounds like the names of a pair of particularly salacious groupies).


First onstage this evening though were Brighton-based four-piece Noble Jacks, performing their energetic brand of Indie-rock; which put me in mind of The Waterboys from their Big Music days.  Noble Jacks' unique selling point is that lead vocalist Will Page occasionally puts down his guitar and picks up a fiddle....and we all enter Riverdance territory for a couple of songs.  All very pleasant, I have to say, and it certainly got a number of the wrinklies in the place (this one included) movin' about.

The band appears a quartet of talented and ambitious guys, very clearly on the way up, taking every opportunity to remind us of their new single, their new album, their upcoming Manchester gig, whilst simultaneously imploring us all to visit the merch stall.  This slightly demeaning activity appears to be something all bands are compelled to have to do these days, if they wish to make ends meet.

Noble Jacks

Will Varley...

...and band

Will Varley, with his collection of introspective and witty folky tunes, initially appeared an odd choice to be sandwiched between the other two slightly rumbustious acts.  But then, as he took to the stage, I noted Will had grown a band.  Just an unprepossessing looking rhythm section, and a lead guitarist, but at least he should be able now to hold his own, decibel-wise, I thought.

As indeed he did, mostly.

We got four new songs – the titles of which I have made up/guessed at, based upon my recollection of the lyrics.  A Different Man had an upbeat Sixties vibe going on, and was the most memorable of the quartet.  Whilst I'll Never Get Tired of Loving You (written for Will's young daughter) was strong enough to close the set, without sounding out of place amongst Will's better known tunes.

Blood and Bone, from one of the singer's early albums didn't quite work this evening though.  Things did pick up once the band ambled back onstage midway through to help jack up both the tempo and the volume, but the opening few verses (performed solo) had seen Will toiling to be heard over the disinterested chatter.

But, all in all, I enjoyed Varley's set (but then again, I am a huge fan).  And the new 'uns performed suggested Will is perhaps moving away from the dark places he visited on his previous two albums.

Parenthood can do that to a man.

Will Varley set list

?Only Louise
?A Different Man
? We're Still Here
King for a King
We Don't Believe You
Blood and Bone
Seize The Night
?I'll Never Get Tired of Loving You



The four Dead Southerners eventually arrived on stage, each sporting a comically large miners' lamp in front of them, and an illuminated tombstone (or maybe a stained glass window) behind them, opening their set with Diamond Ring.

Colton Crawford was back with the band, following his two-and-a-half year hiatus.  Having lopped off his braided rat's tail and shaved his scrubby beard; with his crisp white shirt and tie and bowler hat, he resembled nothing so much this evening as a slightly bemused-looking Stan Laurel.

Nate Hilts and Scott Pringle, in their respective travellin' preacher and moonshine-stilling mountain man personas handled the majority of the vocals between them.  But the real cool guy in the band for me was Danny Kenyon.  Sometimes plucking and sometimes bowing his shoulder-strung cello, he looked to be having a whale of a time, grinning throughout.

There was a slightly flabby middle to the set though, I felt.  For there are only so many occasions one can shout "OneTwoThreeFour!!" and go into a frantic 100 notes/second picking hoe-down, without the law of diminishing returns beginning to kick in.

Whilst such interludes were certainly fun, I found I rather preferred their slightly slower tunes: Diamond Ring, Spaghetti, and (what I think is their finest song, thus far) Broken Cowboy.

The band's paean to the joys of incest, Banjo Odyssey, closed the show perfectly.  There was a bit of debate about this latter song's content when it was first released back in 2013.  Not just about the family ties jig-a-jig, but accusations that the lyric condoned non-consensual sex viz “Pulled you out by your hair”. 

There is also the business of the young lady in the car screaming "No", as the narrator pushes his foot further and further to the metal.  Consequently, I often wonder whether there is not a bit of an unwilling Thelma and Louise climax to the whole narrative.  


Set list
(A touch of guess work on my part here)

Diamond Ring
Blue Trash
The Recap
Black Lung
Broken Cowboy
Snake Man
Spaghetti
Miss Mary
That Bastard Son
Time For Crawlin'
Fat Little Killer Boy
Smootchin' in the Ditch
Heaven in a Wheelbarrow
In Hell I'll Be in Good Company
Honey You

Encore
Travellin Man
Banjo Odyssey

Danny Kenyon

Scott Pringle, Nate Hilts & Colton Crawford

The Dead South - Manchester - February 2020