Live at Auckland Town Hall
11 December 2025
Live Review by Music Journalist: Paul Marshall
The Dead South Turn Auckland Town Hall Into a Bluegrass Battleground.
There’s a particular kind of electricity that hits the air when a band built for dusty barrooms suddenly finds itself commanding a near-capacity Auckland Town Hall. It’s the hum of a grassroots movement reaching critical mass, and The Dead South, Regina, Saskatchewan’s finest Amish-chic bluegrass desperados, have earned every volt of it.
This is a band that didn’t cheat code their way through the algorithm era. No TikTok stunts. No label-backed campaigns. Just relentless touring through rooms so small you could smell the sweat on the banjo strings. Their folk-horror-meets-spaghetti-western aesthetic was niche until Reddit happened. One viral post of “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company” detonated globally, sending millions of viewers spiralling into their bone-dry harmonies and murder-ballad swagger. Suddenly they were international, a Tarantino-flavoured bluegrass act with cult level devotion.
Tonight, Auckland showed up hard. Three tiers packed, stalls heaving all the way past the sound desk. Even before the music hit, the chatter was so loud I couldn’t even Shazam the background music, just a thick wall of anticipation, half whiskey fumes, half nervous excitement. The crowd was a weird and wonderful cross-section: ragged cowboy hats, distressed denim, a splattering of Dead South tees, a few hillbilly cosplay casualties (no for real)… and, inexplicably, Metallica fans. Lots of them. Turns out bluegrass and thrash metal intersect somewhere between banjos and big beards.
Henry Wagons, Australia’s answer to a cowboy Dame Edna, has a deep history with The Dead South dating back to their early Canada days, and he opened the night with a set that played more like a rambling pub yarn than a fully-formed performance. Charming, of course, Wagons is nothing if not effortlessly charming, but tonight the spark never quite caught fire.
He fired off lines like:
“Press your genitals up against each other, this one’s about my own death.”
and
“I don’t know when I’m gonna die…”
But the audience had already checked out. The chatter swallowed whole verses, a loud reminder that if you don’t connect, Auckland won’t pretend for your sake. By the time Wagons offered his “version of a song inspired by AC/DC’s Highway to Hell,” he’d lost the room entirely. The set ended with him screaming “Willie Nelson!” into a crowd that barely noticed.
Next up, you know who.
Then the lights dropped. A low rumble. And The Dead South strode out with “Snake Man,” instantly snapping the room to attention like a rifle crack.
The harmonies? Flawless. Not a note missed.
In an era where autotune props up half the touring circuit, these guys are the real thing, no pitch-corrected doppelgängers, no smoke, no mirrors. I was close enough to hear the raw sound before it hit the PA, and I’ll stake my journalistic reputation on this: they can sing.
Their setup remains beautifully simple:
Nate Hilts (guitar, lead vocals)
Scott Pringle (mandolin, vocals)
Colton Crawford (banjo, kick drum, vocals)
Danny Kenyon (cello, vocals) (cello played like a chainsaw in formalwear)
They share a bottle of Jameson between songs, like a travelling brotherhood pacing itself through the night. It’s authentic without trying to be.
For a bluegrass show, the aggression level was bizarrely high. Maybe it's the out-of-towners. Maybe it's the whisky. Maybe it's the excitement of being in a “big city.” But at the start of the set I watched two drunken Brokeback mountain wannabe cowboy-hatted idiots verbally assault a guy for merely raising his phone. Later, a full-blown fight erupted on the other side of the room, yet another reminder that some people shouldn’t be allowed near alcohol unless accompanied by an adult.
At one point, a sweet wave of herbal hippie dope rolled through the air. A noble attempt at crowd management, though it didn’t fully take.
But when the band launched into “The Bastard Son,” everything aligned: all four stepped in unison from the backline to the front like a saloon gang preparing for a duel, delivering perfect harmonies that sliced the hall clean open. A massive highlight.
As the band left stage right, the entire venue shuddered with simulated thunder, crashes, rumbles, strobes firing like indoor lightning. The great hall shook under the sub bass, a storm conjured from the floorboards.
Then came the stomping.
Thousands of feet hammering in unison, gladiator-arena intensity, honestly louder than the PA. It was primal, tribal, and unmistakably Dead South fans.
The encore opened as a two-piece with “Clemency,” a tender moment before the full quartet glided back onstage to bring the night home. By then the crowd many with their unmistakable waxed moustaches had transformed: less combative, more reverent, drawn into the swirl of kick drum, banjo, cello, guitars.
They arrived as bluegrass outsiders with horror-western flair and left as conquering folk heroes.
Live, they are undeniable.
Unfiltered.
Un-auto-tuned.
Unmistakably themselves.
From a viral Reddit post to a thunderous Auckland Town Hall on the other side of the planet, this is a band that built its legacy the hard way, and tonight, we witnessed why it’s paying off.
The Set List:
(Intro music) Snake Man Pt. 1
- Snake Man Pt. 2
- 20 Mile Jump
- Son of Ambrose
- Boots
- Yours To Keep
- Time for Crawlin'
- The Recap
- Father John
- That Bastard Son
- Black Lung
- A Little Devil
- Broken Cowboy
- The Dead South
- In Hell I'll Be in Good Company
- Honey You
Encore:
- Clemency
- Completely, Sweetly
- Travellin' Man
- Banjo Odyssey
Reviewer: Paul Marshall
Photography by Paul Marshall
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