Live Review - The Dead South Manchester Apollo March 21st 2025

It’s not often we stray from the world of heavy metal over here at The Miserable Metal Mind, it’s rare, but not unheard of.

The music of The Dead South is certainly different than our normal menu, but with songs about sex, drinking, death, and fighting we are not too far removed. Plus I like them. 

This evening's music begins with support from “Corb Lund”. These fellow Canadians have a smoother feel to their country music sound. The audience soaks up the tails of cowboys and cavalry delivered by this four piece. Mixed into these more traditional country tunes we get a rock-a-billie tune named “The Gothest Girl I Can” causing many money-makers to be shaken. A beautifully smooth guitar solo graces Manchester’s Apollo in “Spookin’ The Horses”. With material from ten albums to choose from Corb’s music goes down well tonight. 

As the four mic stands appear on the stage awaiting their operators the anticipation begins to build. After what seems like an eternity the Saskatchewan boys take to the stage to huge applause. Opening up with “Snake Man Pt 2” the scene is set. Dressed in their trade mark white shirts and black braces apart from the main vocalist Nate Hilts. All four members are standing on a stage flanked with a mock-up of an old western village with an atmospheric light show assisting in the entertainment. Not that this band need assistance, Hilts has a rock n roll stage presence and stage demeanour making crowd participation easy. The Dead South’s tunes have an air of darkness enveloped in them, while the folk bluegrass style shines through. The musicianship and love of the craft is on show for the diverse crowd to witness.  

Indeed “That Bastard Son” provides a surreal moment which I am sure is echoed in venues throughout this tour and others, where hipsters, retired couples, middle-aged rockers and idiots in check shirts, who cannot stop talking throughout the gig, come together and chant the line “ I just want liquor and dirty whores” in time, and in tune, and often.

When the much loved 2014 track “ In Hell I’ll be in Good Company” comes around many, many camera phones are held aloft to capture the moment, seriously I have never seen so many phones, it looks like some people have brought two phones, just to make sure! 

After a couple more tunes the song about cousins and their sexual relations brings this successful evening to a close. An event that almost manages to wipe the gut punch memory of a £7 cost for two small bottles of water. 

Review and photos Neil Thrashtash Bolton