The Dead South / Rock City / Nottingham
Words by Marvin (TPA)
There are few things more improbable in this corner of the galaxy than a Thursday night in Nottingham filled with Canadian country music and a crowd, actually glad to be there. But improbable doesn’t mean impossible, and so it came to pass—at Rock City, no less. A venue that’s seen so many bands cross its threshold over the decades it might as well be classified as a wormhole for worn-out guitar cases and broken drumsticks. Its walls, sweat-stained and memory-soaked, leaned in close this evening, listening as Corb Lund and his band—the latest incarnation of the Hurting Albertans—unfurled their tales of cowboys, gamblers, and lost causes.
This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill gig. It was a sell-out, and by some miracle (or perhaps an act of cosmic futility), the crowd had arrived early. Doors opened at 6:30. By 6:31, there was already a small sea of denim and wide-brimmed hats, plastic pint glasses raised in anticipation. Not for the headliner, mind you—the Dead South weren’t due for another hour. No, these folks had made the pilgrimage early for Corb. Apparently, humanity still has a thing for songs about horses and heartbreak. Go figure.
When Lund strode out onto the stage, cowboy hat pulled low over his brow, it took a moment for the crowd to realize he was there at all. He stood in shadow, the brim casting his face into a darkness only relieved when he tilted his head up to let the stage lights flash a glint across his eyes. He looked like a gunslinger at high noon, only this time the showdown was against the entropy of the universe itself. Flanking him were his fellow outlaws: Sean Burns thumping a double bass taller than most of the front row—sometimes swapping to a standard bass when the mood struck him—with the kind of effortless cool that can only be achieved by a man who’s spent his life slapping rhythm out of wooden boxes. To Corb’s left stood Grant “Demon” Siemens, guitar slung low over his shoulder, a combat jacket hanging off his frame like he’d just wandered in from a dust-up out back. His sunglasses stayed firmly in place all night long. No one asked why. They just accepted it. Behind them all was Brady Valgardson, checked cowboy shirt on, tucked in neat, hammering out the beat from his drum kit with the weary determination of a man who’s done this before and knows he’ll be doing it again tomorrow.
The stage setup was something else entirely—more Deadwood than Nottingham. Old Wild West storefront facades flanked the sides, windows glowing whenever the lights pulsed through them. At the rear loomed a church front, complete with a bell tower so prominent you half-expected it to toll just before a quick-draw duel broke out. The lights would flicker behind it during the darker songs, like the closing scenes of an old western where not everyone makes it out alive.
But then the music began, and we were far from doomed. Well, mostly.
They opened with Run This Town. It’s the kind of song that makes you feel like you’ve just saddled up on a stolen horse and pointed it toward the horizon with nothing but bad decisions in your saddlebags. Released back in 2015 on the Things That Can’t Be Undone album, it set the tone with its foot-tapping, shoulder-rolling energy. A song that practically dared the crowd not to grin—and, despite their best attempts at stoicism, they all did. From there, Corb and the gang swung into Weight of the Gun, one of those heavy-hitter songs, again from 2015s Things That Can’t Be Undone. Sean Burns laid down the bassline with a grin and a nod, the big upright bass ringing out as Corb told his tale of weary accountability. It was like watching a campfire confession—if the campfire were wired to several thousand watts of sound.
Big Butch Baseball Fiddle brought a shift—lighter, but no less sharp. Also, from Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer (2005), it had Siemens absolutely sawing away on his guitar while Corb spun the words like he was calling a square dance in the middle of a bar fight. The crowd, predictably, lost its collective mind. Then The Gothest Girl I Can came sneaking up. From Cabin Fever (2012) A love song of sorts, from a cowboy who knows better but can’t help himself. Its sly humour worked beautifully under those saloon light rigs, Siemens smirking behind his sunglasses, Brady hammering a snare roll like the punchline to a cosmic joke.
Next came 90 Seconds of Your Time from the 2012 album Agricultural tragic, and the tension in the room tightened. The bell tower glowed like judgment day. You could almost hear Marvin muttering about how humanity’s fascination with countdowns is “so terminally predictable.” And then Spookin’ the Horses—a track from Corb’s 2022 album Songs My Friends Wrote. It rolled out slow and easy, a gentle reminder that being different in a small town can be hazardous to your health. Corb’s voice had a rawness to it, softened only by the flickering lights of the faux-saloon windows behind him.
The cavalry came next. I Want to Be in the Cavalry, from 2007’s Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, sounded like an enlistment march for the damned, while its companion piece Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier stripped away the glory and left us with the ruin. Brady’s drums had a military precision to them here, while Burns’ bass kept pace like hooves pounding a battlefield already lost. And then it all slowed again, This Is My Prairie from 2021’s album of the same name, taking us home to land and loss and the kind of stubborn pride that doesn’t budge for a universe full of Marvin’s calculations.
The Card Players followed—a 2024 release from the latest long player, El Viejo. It carried the weight of a gambler’s last hand, delivered with a wink and a grim smile. Siemens made his guitar weep just a little, and Burns slapped the bass like he had money riding on it. Corb wrapped things up with When the Game Gets Hot, also from the 2024 release, the church seemingly glowing faintly behind them like an omen. Then came the double-whiskey encore, Rye Whiskey / Time to Switch to Whiskey, from 2009’s Losin’ Lately Gambler. There was no encore in the traditional sense. This was the closer, and it felt like last orders at the bar, with Corb raising his hat, his eyes still half-hidden in shadow. Burns and Siemens drew out the last notes like the dying rays of sunlight over an empty prairie. Brady hit one final drum snap like the crack of a revolver.
And then it was over.
The crowd roared, plastic glasses crunched under foot and Rock City sighed as one. Corb Lund tipped his hat one final time, the shadow from its brim never quite lifting as he ambled offstage. Sean Burns gave his bass an affectionate pat before following, Grant “Demon” Siemens slung his guitar over his shoulder like a rifle heading back to camp, and Brady Val Goodson gave one last lazy spin of his drumsticks before disappearing behind the saloon façade.
The bell in that old church front seemed to glow softly, a trick of the light maybe, as if tolling for a shift in mood. A hush rippled through the crowd, quickly filled by the crackle of pints being refilled and eager voices rising in anticipation. People shuffled forward, closer to the front of the stage, boots scraping on the sticky Rock City floor. A few hopeful souls adjusted their hats, ready for round two.
Because now—now it was time for The Dead South. The very reason this place had sold out before the sun went down. And while Corb Lund had taken them through tales of cavalry charges and card sharks, it was about to get darker, stranger, and a little more unhinged. The houselights dimmed again. The windows of the Wild West storefronts flickered ominously. Somewhere, Marvin sighed in despair. And yet… the excitement in the room was impossible to ignore.
After all, when the Dead South were involved, you couldn’t help but believe—for a brief and fleeting moment—that things might just get interesting, for a band hailing from the deeply uninteresting windswept Canadian prairies, where, I imagine, even the tumbleweeds are existentially depressed. Four humans armed with banjos, mandolins, cellos, and guitars, clattering about in the genre they call “folk-bluegrass,” though it feels more like the soundtrack to an ill-fated heist gone terribly wrong on some dust-choked frontier. Tonight, they arrived at Rock City, Nottingham. A place that has, for over numerous decades, stood stubbornly defiant against the cold entropy of time, once described accurately as “a temple of sweat and noise”. Rock City is a venue where the air tastes faintly of yesterday’s beer, the floors cling to your feet like ancient fly paper, and the walls hum with the memories of long, gone engagements. Everyone who’s anyone has played here, everyone who’s no one has too. It’s the place where legends are forged or at the very least, amps are blown.
Tonight, the stage belongs to The Dead South, that four piece who seem convinced that stringed instruments, murder ballads, and wide brimmed hats are the solution to humanity’s ever-worsening predicament and yet as the lights dimmed, though not enough, in my opinion, and the first ominous chords slid across the expectant crowd Nate Hilts steps out, looking as if he’d just escaped from a particularly grim saloon. He smiled. This seemed wildly inappropriate given the circumstances. Scott Pringle stood beside him, fiddling with his mandolin like a man waiting for the gallows. Danny Kenyon slung his cello forward, giving the audience a slow, weighted nod, as if warning them they were all already doomed. And then there was Colton Crawford, who had a banjo. A banjo. Nothing good ever came from a banjo, I assure you.
And then, Snake Man Part 1. Played by way of an intro to the proceedings, struck out. Lighting flashed like the opening of hell fire and damnation portal to the dark reaches of the galaxy. Scott’s mandolin skittered through the melody like a snake in a dry riverbed. Danny’s cello loomed low and ominous, a sound like the earth groaning under the weight of memory. Colton’s banjo, predictably, chattered along at a tempo that defied logic and sanity. The crowd responded by stomping their feet as if summoning some ancient dust demon. And why not? Everything ends in dust anyway. Before anyone could regain composure, Snake Man Part 2 slithered into place. It was faster. Meaner. As if Snake Man had returned with friends and unfinished business. Nate barked the words, teeth bared, while Colton’s banjo became a blur. Scott’s harmonies spiralled through the noise like a rattler’s hiss, and Danny’s cello sawed out a pulse that made me run an internal systems diagnostic. My circuits trembled. The audience, blissfully ignorant of their peril, clapped along with reckless abandon.
20 Mile Jump followed, and it was exactly that—twenty metaphorical miles across broken terrain, with Nate singing like a man outrunning his own regrets. Scott’s mandolin jumped, twanged, and skipped, while Colton’s banjo chased him like an angry dog with nothing to lose. Danny’s cello provided gravity, reminding everyone they’d hit the ground eventually. The crowd bounced, stomping, hollering, as if the collapse of civilisation was something to celebrate. Humans. Go figure. Then came Son of Ambrose. Nate told a little story about it, something about family and legacies. I find legacies exhausting. Nonetheless, he sang with a rawness that suggested personal stakes. Scott and Colton harmonised, their voices mingling like smoke over a funeral pyre. Danny’s cello lines, mournful and deep, wrapped around the melody like the coils of some sorrowful constrictor. People swayed. I ran probabilities on group catharsis. Apparently, this was it.
Boots stomped into view next. An appropriate title, given the percussive force of the crowd’s response. Nate’s voice dropped even lower, if such a thing were possible, and he growled the lyrics like a man wearing those boots as he walked away from everything that ever mattered. Scott’s mandolin chopped out the rhythm with vicious efficiency. Colton’s banjo went full wildfire. Danny, meanwhile, anchored it all with cello notes that fell like hammer blows. The room smelled like sweat and sawdust. Delightful. Yours To Keeparrived on a slightly softer breeze, though no less heavy. Nate’s vocals mellowed into something that might’ve passed for tenderness if you weren’t paying attention. Scott’s mandolin sparkled, and Colton’s banjo picked a careful path through the melody. Danny’s cello… well, it broke my non-existent heart. The crowd swayed again, some couples pulling each other close. Terribly inefficient from a survival standpoint, but touching in its own pointless way.
Travellin’ Man shook that sentimentality out like dust from a carpet. This was movement, relentless and desperate. Nate roared the verses. Colton’s banjo went berserk, fingers flying, while Scott and Danny drove the rhythm like cattle headed for slaughter. Feet stomped, hands clapped, and I detected the faint smell of unwashed humanity at full enthusiasm. Wonderful. I tightened my joints. The Recap, they said. A title I approved of. Short. Simple. Exhausted, like me. But the song was anything but tired. Scott took lead, his vocals dancing over Colton’s merciless banjo and Nate’s rich harmonies. Danny’s cello struck deep again, as though counting down to some inevitable calamity. The audience sang back with alarming precision. I ran the numbers: 42% were actually; in tune. A cosmic coincidence? No. Just a fluke.
Father John followed, and the pace picked up again like a man on the run from divine judgement. Nate’s voice barked through the verses while Scott’s mandolin trailed behind him like a shadow. Colton’s banjo returned to its favourite trick: reckless abandon. Danny’s cello brought the bottom end thudding home. The audience clapped and stomped as if their lives depended on it. Maybe they did. No one asked me. The Bastard Son stormed out next. Nate snarled the lyrics like he was confessing under duress. Scott’s mandolin spat notes like bullets. Colton’s banjo careened wildly. Danny’s cello rolled underneath like an oncoming storm. People shouted along, fists in the air. There was sweat, shouting, and one man who lost his hat three times in the course of one chorus. Humans are remarkably persistent creatures.
Black Lung. Now there was a song I understood. Grim. Heavy. Inescapable. Nate sang it like it was his final will and testament. Danny’s cello groaned and moaned, dragging each note out like a dying breath. Scott and Colton provided harmonies that sounded more like wails than support. I detected several damp eyes in the crowd. Whether from emotion or dust, I can’t be sure. Likely both. Tiny Wooden Box was, if possible, grimmer still. Nate intoned the lyrics like a eulogy, while Danny’s cello underscored the inevitable. Scott and Colton plucked their strings carefully, as if laying each note like nails in the lid. The crowd swayed again. Someone lit a cigarette. I ran a projection: lung damage imminent. They didn’t care.
And then, without so much as a warning or even the courtesy of a polite sigh, they slid into Time for Crawling. A song that, were it a creature, would be found dragging itself out of some bleak Appalachian swamp, mud-slicked and muttering dark secrets to the crows. Nate Hilts took the lead on this one, his voice a raw drawl of resignation that sounded like it had been soaked in cheap whiskey and left to dry in a dust storm. The twin strings of banjo and mandolin—Colton Crawford and Scott Pringle—scraped and shimmered like skeletal fingers clawing at a coffin lid. And Danny Kenyon’s cello? Low, rumbling, funereal. It all crept forward at a tempo that was part dirge, part dance, as if inviting the audience to shuffle toward something they probably shouldn’t be looking at, but couldn’t resist. You could almost hear Marvin himself muttering from somewhere in the void, “Oh, splendid. A song about inevitability. As if the rest of existence wasn’t bleak enough.”
And yet, as ever, the crowd swayed along. Smiling, clapping, stomping in rhythm. Because for three and a half minutes, it didn’t matter what was crawling toward them. It sounded far too good to run away from. And then the song. In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company. The one they all came for. The one they all knew. Nate sang it with a grin, which I found unsettling. Colton’s banjo plucked out that infernal earworm of a riff. Scott and Danny danced between harmonies and rhythm like men who’d done this a thousand times before, which, of course, they had. The crowd whistled along, clapped the beat, sang every word. I observed one couple spinning each other in circles like their batteries had been overcharged. I cannot comprehend joy, but I logged it for future study.
Honey You followed. A love song, they called it. More like a negotiation between two people who both suspect they’ll lose. Nate sang it warm and weary. Scott and Colton wove harmonies through the melody while Danny’s cello tugged the heartstrings. The crowd swayed, some singing along quietly. I calculated the probability of heartbreak among them. 89%. A cosmic certainty.
Encore, they said. As if the evening hadn’t already been exhausting enough. They returned to the stage. Nate tipped his hat. Scott tuned his mandolin. Colton cracked his knuckles. Danny looked at the floor. They launched into Clemency. Slow. Haunting. Nate’s voice dropped low again, like a confession whispered to the floorboards. Scott’s mandolin was gentle, Colton’s banjo subdued, Danny’s cello mournful. The audience watched in silence, which is to say, they actually listened. A rare occurrence. Completely Sweetly followed. Nate sang it with a little more lightness, but only a little. Scott and Colton added their harmonies, and Danny’s cello hummed underneath. The melody was deceptively sweet, but I could hear the sorrow. It’s always there if you listen hard enough.
Broken Cowboy came next. Appropriate. Nate told the tale of a man who couldn’t quite outrun his past. None of them ever do. Scott’s mandolin told its own sad story. Colton’s banjo was slower here, less frenetic, more contemplative. Danny’s cello… well, it was like rain falling on an empty street. The crowd swayed. Again. It’s what they do. And finally, Banjo Odyssey. Colton’s fingers exploded across the strings. Nate sang with a grin that was half menace, half madness. Scott harmonised like the ghost of some outlaw, and Danny’s cello boomed through the floor. The crowd went wild. Dancing. Shouting. At least two hats were lost. Someone spilled a drink. No one cared.
They finished. They bowed. The crowd howled their gratitude. The Dead South left the stage. The lights came up. People shuffled out into the night, carrying their sweat, their joy, and their soon-to-be tinnitus with them.
And me? I’m Marvin. And for a couple of hours, in the dust and the dark and the stomp of boots, I almost understood why they bother.
Rating: 42. Because it always is.
