GLOBAL 'GRASS: Norway's Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra returns to US, set to play Bourgie Nights
- Shannon Rae Gentry
- Oct 10
- 4 min read
Norway’s Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra band kicks off their fall tour in the US this month. Nearly half of Hayde’s tour dates are in North Carolina, with a stopover in Wilmington at Bourgie Nights on October 23.
“We have played around 15 showcases in Raleigh over the last 3 years, so I guess that’s paying off now,” Sjur Marqvardsen (accordion) writes to encore. “And also our agent is located in Chapel Hill, and knows all the best venues in the state!”
Marqvardsen is joined by Moa Meinich (fiddle), Rebekka Nilsson (lead vocals), and Emil Brattested (mandolin, dobro); and aside from our state's roots in folk and bluegrass that we share with Hayde, the band excited to return to the welcoming state. Hayde has visited Raleigh, NC twice for the IBMA World Bluegrass Awards (which moved this year to Chattanooga, TN). Nominated for the IBMA “Momentum Award” for best band in 2022 and 2023, Hayde won the “Vocalist of the Year” award in 2022.
Hayde has a new album in the works, including a US special tour version that will arrive just in time for their first concert at the Bluegrass Island Music Festival (Oct. 16-18) in Monteo, NC. “We plan to play ALL the new songs [throughout the tour],” Marqvardsen assures. “We truly love them, and they will be a big part of our sets.”
Hayde’s past albums have combined original songs and classic covers. Songs like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “All My Tears,” for example, will remain in set rotation as they continue to write new songs. Sets often incorporate originals, traditional bluegrass, and other covers. They have a long list of covers they still hope to record, and plan to record two while in Wilmington.
This time around, Marqvardsen says, writing a new album has been a more democratic process, with songs developing as a collective. “So you get the best from everyone,” Marqvardsen notes. “We truly believe this album will bring us to the next level. I think you can hear on the new record that we listen to a lot of different music—and that we are all kids of the ‘90s. So we are bringing a lot of that into the acoustic bluegrass sound. For me, I will always circle back to Arcade Fire, Leonard Choen, Nick Cave, David Bowie—and I would really recommend the new Norwegian band ULD.”
Fellow Hayde member Emil Brattested (mandolin, dobro) enjoys acoustic music, generally bluegrass, but increasingly more artistic, instrumental, and (as a jazz-musician also) modern jazz. “I, of course, enjoy my share of metal and other more aggressive styles of music,” he quips. “As a Scandinavian guitar player, I feel like this is an essential part of the curriculum. … It also feels good to play acoustic music. It kind of feels like more ‘human’ qualities come through automatically. There is little to hide behind, so to speak. In a way, this helps your recorded music to feel closer to an actual live-performance.
“I think this entirely acoustic approach seems attractive to many at the moment. By excluding every other option (e.g. electronic and electric instruments, drums, loops/samples etc.) you may find it easier to be creative, and it also helps your music stand apart.”
From bluegrass and Americana, or "grassicana" and "Nordic-grass" "Scandifolk," "Nordicana," the genre seems more and more malleable than what some folks may have grown up believing. Brattested thinks that’s the coolest part about this modern world of bluegrass: specific instrumentation is what defines the genre.
“And it is this rare case where labeling a musical sub-genre actually is kind of helpful, for once!” he quips. “If you stick to this general instrumentation you can kind of go wherever you want musically, and it will usually live nicely under the same general roof as traditional bluegrass and other varieties of grass. I feel like the instrumentation is the most general requirement you need to meet in order to be labeled bluegrass or ‘something-grass’. If your music is semi-electric and features drums and/or percussion, it may still be some kind of Americana-music, but it doesn’t really make sense to label it ‘bluegrass’ or some-kind-of-grass. We use this label because it actually refers to something quite specific.”
Bluegrass music and its cultural significance across continents is on full display with Hayde. This immigration of sounds, and specifically Nordic folk influence to bluegrass, develops, mixes, and travels back and forth like melodic post cards over hundreds of years, now about to land back here in the US.
“Our specific experiences suggest that interacting through music is a brilliant way to connect across borders, oceans and cultures,” Brattested adds. “It is not surprising, but we really feel like we are being welcomed like musical family members when we connect with the bluegrass-community in the US. It is still quite amazing to us."
Hayde will have their latest and previous CDs available to purchase only at shows on this tour, including Bourgie Nights on October 23.
DETAILS
Thursday, Oct. 23
7 p.m., doors | 8 p.m. show
$15 adv. | $20 day of
Bourgie Nights | 127 Princess St