There’s only so many different things you can do with an acoustic guitar, a harmonica, and your voice, so it’s not so much what you do with them as how you do it.
And Lachie Hayes plays the kind of straight-ahead, simple, paired-back blues and country that you’d expect from a set-up like that, but he brings an undeniable style and individuality that created a very enjoyable night’s music at Auckland’s Big Fan last night.
Hayes opened his show alone, just one man hunched over a guitar, for a brief solo set. As he picked, and blew, and howled into his microphone, you could hear an artist who’s steeped himself in the blues of the American south, the music to the voice all sounding intensely American. But songs like In My Sweet Time soon gave the game away—references to the islands and the mountains soon remind you that you’re listening to a Kiwi, one who’s drunk deep from the well of both the blues he says he belongs to and the country music that permeates his music. Hayes is equally at home with his own material—Lou Anne is that rare thing, a song about terminal illness—as he is with the classics like Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues.
But despite all the American sheen and veneer, he’s a Kiwi. The voice is unmistakably Southland, all rhotic Rs and that hint of nasality that lends itself to country music effortlessly, and his patter between songs, while baiting his JAFA audience, landed surprisingly well. Hayes presents himself as a man learning his craft, but in reality he performs well-crafted songs with confidence and character.
And when, after about half a dozen songs and a quick break for Hayes to settle the guts he’d been warning us might do something inappropriate, he returned to the stage with his backing band, the Tokonui Chainsaws (told you he was a Southland boy…), he kicked the show up another gear with a set that focussed on the band’s new album, Subsatellite. King Of The Night Out On The Tiles might have a clunky title, but it fairly chugs along, country blending with Hayes’ beloved blues and his own unique spark. S.O.B. sounded like it was about to be just another Johnny Cash tribute, but Antonio Mercuri’s drums drove the song into a groove that Liam Fairbairn’s bass pushed into something that bit more interesting.
Lachie Hayes isn’t about to break any new ground. But with music this engaging, he doesn’t need to. To judge by last night’s show, he and his mates have a future ahead of them ploughing a furrow that might be deeply rooted in the American south but which has its own very clearly Kiwi twist.