The Voice

Issue date: 9/15/08 Section: Entertainment

Put on a pair of your finest overalls, snag a jug of moonshine, and pack your Skoal, cuz it's time for a hoe-down! At least that's the vibe Packway Handle Band brings to the table every time I hear their smokin' hot bluegrass tunes.

Athens' own Packway Handle Band consists of Josh Erwin (guitar and vocals), Zach McCoy (bass), Andrew Heaton (fiddle and vocals), Michael Paynter (mandolin and vocals) and Tom Baker (banjo and vocals).

Packway's ability to blend traditional bluegrass with utterly inappropriate covers is truly one of my favorite aspects about them. I am also a big fan of their four-part harmonies and the way they dance around two tightly "packed" condenser microphones, it is a wonderful sight.

Packway mixes their sets with some traditional bluegrass songs like "Sinner," a Monroe Brothers tune, as well as some not so traditional bluegrass numbers like "American Music" by the Violent Femmes, and "Like a Prayer" by Madonna. Not to mention some of their own, fun and borderline ridiculous songs like a sexually confused duck called "Earl the duck," and whiskey drinking songs like "Until I get caught (whiskey song)".

Packways's ability to connect with its audience members, while making us feel like they are a part of the song, makes for an amazing concert experience. Imagine fiddle player Andrew Heaton standing on stage stomping his feat and pointing his fiddle bow towards the audience labeling each of us as a damned sinner. "Watch out sinner cuz you're facing your end," growls Heaton. "Oh sinner you better get REH-a-dee, time's a commin when the sinner must die." I sometimes fee like I might be standing in a 1930's southern Baptist church ready to walk up to the pulpit and kneel before the lord.

Packway Handle Band might be one of the best kept secrets left in the Athens music scene, but the word is out and it travels fast around this town. These guys play their music with fire and brimstone, and it won't be long before you're standing next to me singing about Earl the duck and her sexual identity crisis and at the same time ready to repent all your woeful sins before the lord. Hallelujah!

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools