The Down County Boys at Bury Met
 IN
ASSOCIATION WITH the Arts Council, Bury Met has brought several styles of
music to this Lancashire town. For several years they have run a successful
Cajun festival and in April saw an evening of Bluegrass, with the Down County
Boys, the HMV British Country Music Award winners for the year 2000.
The night's performance was held in the small and intimate cafe-bar next to the information centre. An ample stage at the front of the lounge acted as the podium for the evening's performance from this top class British bluegrass band. With the band made up of Guy Rogers (guitar/ mandolin), Jim Irvine (banjo/ guitar), Peter Parker (fiddle) and Mike Cooper (upright bass), they opened with the instrumental Big Mon, a fitting tribute to the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. Other instrumentals continued throughout the evening, including Shuckin' The Corn and Foggy Mountain Breakdown, where Jim and Peter let rip with banjo and fiddle, bringing memories of Flatt & Scruggs flooding back and the excitement in the car chase scene from the film Bonnie & Clyde back in the 60s. The vocals from Mike and Guy showed to good effect on numbers such as The Blackbirds & The Crows and the lovely, slow Some Old Days. We took a trip to The Old Home Place and even returned for a later visit with The Old Home Place Revisited, seeing how things had changed over the years and not necessarily for the better. The three-part harmonies from Guy, Mike and Peter showed the strength of this band on several songs and demonstrated why this band have once again received a prestigious accolade from the British Country Music Awards.
Jim Irvine, Mick Cooper, Guy Rogers and Peter Parker Peter shared a fiddle tune he had pinched from Stuart Duncan, which he performed exquisitely with just Guy accompanying him on guitar. A little banter between the band added a touch of comedy and a musing Time Gets Tedious from Jim brought about a comical reverie. And the change of uniform from maroon to pale yellow shirts during the interval was a nice professional touch lending variety to the two 1-hour spots; by and large British Bluegrass seems to be lacking such touches... There is always a train song in any form of bluegrass music and we were not disappointed here - we were taken on a journey on-board the City Of New Orleans while riding on the Orange Blossom Special. We shared the excitement of this fast moving track as the Down County Boys carried us back home. The evening held a richness with an exciting and powerful performance from the DCBs, lets hope we will see more ventures like this in our local town centres. I was a little disappointed that more of the bluegrass fraternity didn't turn out to see this fine band. Graham Lees, Dewesbury, W.Yorks.
See also: The Down County Boys Story (Serialised: started
March 2000 Editor's note: The DCB's were disappointed not to be able to use the larger concert hall; the change to the smaller venue was caused entirely by lack of support. This was their last gig before Geoff Bowers joined.
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