Festival favourites, Golden Fiddle recipients, and four-time Bluegrass Golden Guitar finalists, The Hillbilly Goats are bringing their mountain music and harmonies to The Imperial Hotel on Friday 27 May.Â
Trad folk on steroids with a splash of colour and a high-energy quirky edge, these Goats have forged their own path, having released four studio albums specialising in mountain music.
Featuring banjo, bones, double bass, fiddle, tap dancing, three-part harmonies and stories, The Hillbilly Goats transport you on a journey of the history of mountain music’s evolution into blues, country and bluegrass. These guys aren’t just a band – they’re a show!
The Goats are passionate in their research and delivery of old time traditional folk music, sharing the mountain music that began in the late 1600s when the Scots Irish immigrants first settled in the Appalachian Mountains of America.
The mountain music story progresses through the Africans bringing the banjo up to the Blue Ridge in the 1860s, through the evolution into country music (1927), and then bluegrass in the late 1930s.
In researching music that’s almost lost and rearranging it to record and present to live audiences, The Goats are keeping old folk music alive for future generations. Their musical twist on traditional songs – with big harmonies, a heavy presence of hard fiddle and fast harmonica – have seen them carve their own niche at major festivals nationwide.
The band members are never satisfied with their own instruments and continually swap over and change positions on stage – you won’t know where to look or who to watch! Â
Each member is their own character to love. You’ll see Goat Girl running through the crowd rattling the bones, Goat Boy playing three instruments at once (drums with his feet, banjo in hand and harmonica on a brace), while the Giddy Goat dances up a storm – while playing fiddle flat out!
TICKETS: Pre-sale $25 (+ booking fee) through Oztix. 18+ event. Doors open 7.30pm
