MUSIC

The Croft, Bristol (Wed 21 Dec, 2011)

It’s the longest night and it’s slipping by very nicely, thank-you. The Croft has a pleasing hurly-burly, with something post-something going on noisily in the front room, a DJ’s playing what sounds like Sci Fi soundtracks in the bar and various Hook ‘Em Boys are mingling. There’s no great hurry, it seems, but somehow those cats get laconically herded into the back room and the fun begins. And what fun it is, to be sure.

The track list reads like a DJ set from a 70s wedding in hillbilly country – ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, ‘You Never Can Tell’, ‘Ode To Billy-Joe’, ‘Don’t Bogart That Joint’ … - and the band looks like a shambling jam session in the corner of a Tennessee bar. Put like that it’s not a promising night out but, believe me (and the hundred or so others packing the room), it’s a blast.

For one thing all eight Hook ‘Ems obviously really love this country-rock music, for another they’re all really good at it, too. Win win. So if they want to do ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ in the Elvis style they can count on Stig Manley to channel a perfect Scotty Moore guitar part. If they want a Louisiana swamp intro for ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’ then John Baggot and Alex Lee provide Cajun gumbo on accordion and mandolin respectively. There’s a fine rendition of the Stones’ ‘Dead Flowers’ with vocalist Sean Cook swaggering the words over a slinky Keef-style riff, and a thoroughly crowd-pleasing ‘Jackson’ sees Frances Butt play June Carter to Sean’s Johnny Cash.

You somehow know they’ll never get there but you can’t help wish them well. The simple fact is – and they may not like me for saying this – but the Hook ‘Em Boys, for all their shambolic presentation, are becoming a pretty polished piece of business and, given a good sound (as they are tonight), they’re proper job. Anyone you know getting married soon? (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011