IN TRUE carousing fashion, hillbilly band Hayseed Dixie played up to their hard living image.

The band are best known for their bluegrass covers of heavy metal material, which they intersperse with bad jokes, innuendo, their own songs and roaring traditional numbers.

The would-be white trash crowd lapped up the good time vibe. This was essentially drinking music, and the songs all dwelt on liquor, killing, cheating or hellfire.

Their AC/DC covers brought out the primal elements to the tunes, as if to prove country and heavy rock sprang from the same seed. You Shook Me All Night Long was played straight country. A fun approach was rightly taken for the already ludicrous Whole Lotta Love, complete with orgasm sequence.

The pace dipped frequently to allow for beer drinking and redneck humour which were both dull.

Things really started to come together with The Ace Of Spades - taken as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit - and a hoedown shakedown of Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls.

Where Hayseed Dixie shine is when they turn their mock evangelising on to traditional material. Like a hick Peter Paul And Mary, the band are popularisers for the good time, old time music that is bluegrass.

When the banjo, care of Don Wayne Reno, made way for the mandolin, as it did on Moonshiner's Daughter, then the whole mood changed. When the band were able to bring the two worlds together for an extended Highway To Hell,

the edge or spark that was mostly absent burned with a convincing intensity.

Updated: 11:16 Tuesday, July 12, 2005