At the Old Crows' show

When I first started listening to music anything that could be called country was deemed beyond the pale by turns atavistic, insincere, schmaltzy. Exceptions might be made for Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline or The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo but that was rock musicians doing country not the dreaded country music itself.

Despite successive attempts over the decades to make country cool through labels such as new country, cowpunk, alt-country, Americana or whatever, and Dolly Parton becoming an international treasure, I still feel that to tell someone I’m going to a concert by a country artist is to invite an expression on face somewhere between puzzlement and disapproval.

This could be even more so with Old Crow Medicine Show, who are best described as a modern version of an old-time string band and are often cited as an inspiration for the much-derided Mumford and Sons.

In reality they are miles away from any twee version of country music, the dark lyrical themes of many of their songs being very much of the present day, even though the reverence for traditional forms is very real.

The Old Crows were in fine fettle last Monday, and having expanded to a seven-piece band with drummer and keyboardist, have evolved beyond their initial neo-traditionalist style.

They also epitomised something I have noticed more and more in recent years that bands are no longer too cool to recognise that they are providing entertainment and putting on a show. Back in the day niceties like speaking to the audience and thanking them at the end were the exception rather than the rule, perhaps because tours were done under sufferance to promote records rather than now as the main way of making a living by playing music.

So today it’s not uncommon to have jokes, anecdotes and banter, and the Old Crows’ leader Ketch Secor is a natural frontman, regaling the audience with stories about the band’s previous visits to the United Kingdon. As one for whom the Eventim Apollo will always be the Hammersmith Odeon I was pleased to hear him refer to it as such also.