Country music, and the sounds of the American South at large, are something that I’ve always felt a little apprehensive towards. Especially for such a seemingly male-dominated genre, it’s hard to truly call myself a fan of the style when it’s so deeply tied to a culture and country that I wouldn’t feel safe existing in. And yet, there’s something so charming and uplifting about twangy vocals and pedal steel guitars, the sincere love for a place that doesn’t always love you back, that I can’t help but feel drawn to. Most recently, it’s these women-fronted acts like Waxahatchee and especially Asheville five-piece band Wednesday that have encouraged me to engage with the country music canon. 

I was fortunate enough to watch Wednesday on June 1^st at Max Watts, performing one of the most exciting and energetic sets I’ve seen in a long time, touring in support of their stellar 2025 album Bleeds. My favourite release of last year by leaps and bounds, Bleeds takes country influences and spins them into something powerful and anthemic. 

That’s not to say Wednesday are solely a country band, however. Their set featured some of their heaviest, mosh-pit-worthy material, both the band and the fans relishing in its loudness. The crowd was excellent and full of manic energy— my neck still hurts a little from how much I was thrashing around. “I’m sensing some rabidity,” frontwoman Karly Hartzman commented to the audience at the beginning of the set, “we’re gonna have to put y’all down.”

Opening songs “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” and “Got Shocked” addressed the rabid, raving audience perfectly with blasts of guitar, paired nicely with Hartzman’s signature twangy voice, which adapts ridiculously well to every different vocal style and genre the band moves between, switching from bold indie-rocker confidence to gentle country balladry to full-on hardcore, guttural screaming. These seamless changes happen even mid-song: Bleeds single “Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On)” opens with harsh guitars and forceful drum hits, before dropping into a rock song where Hartzman looks back on a funeral, “misr[eads]” someone’s name at the wake, and comments on a “pitbull puppy pissing from a balcony.”. Her voice moves from conversational in these sombre-yet-funny verses to soaring over the crowd in the chorus, before ending in a wave of powerful screams.

The setlist then went on a bit of a structural detour that the band described as a “country sandwich”, taking a break from the harsher sounds that open and close the show and taking a softer approach for five songs. This segment of the show began with “Phish Pepsi” and “Chosen to Deserve”, two solemn, nostalgic songs disguised by an infectiously upbeat country twang, as Hartzman looks back on middle-school parties, terrifying Benadryl trips, and friends who aren’t here anymore. It’s a clash that appears a lot in Wednesday’s music, writing about both the joys and struggles of growing up in North Carolina in such fond, vivid detail. The band then moved into a cover of Gary Stewart’s “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”, a classic country song about a cheating partner, featuring an absolutely roaring chorus that the crowd absolutely ate up. The filling of this “country sandwich” ended with Bleeds tracks “Gary’s II” and “The Way Love Goes”: the former being a fun dance-y tune about a neighbour whose teeth were knocked out by a “shithead” at a bar, the latter being an absolutely crushing lament for lost love (Hartzman has a devastating essay about the song that she wrote for Vulture that I would absolutely recommend checking out).

Across these five songs, there’s a clear sense that much of the crowd shares similar thoughts on country music to me. It feels like, through Wednesday’s music, the band offers a space for people to find their love in the sound of the American South without the gatekeeping and bigotry that is so frequently associated with it. Hartzman herself notes just how accepting and kind the crowd is, proud that her band’s audiences are a pretty even mix of young and old, as well as being around 50 percent women— despite being “very white”, as she comments after hearing everyone clap along to “Gary’s II” on beats one and three. She took a moment to acknowledge where country music comes from; all of the inspiration the band draws from originally came from Black musicians. The music doesn’t come exclusively from straight white men, and bands like Wednesday are what I believe helps stop this feeling of gatekeeping, both in their own music and their choice of covers, introducing people to songwriters like Gary Stewart and Martha Wainwright. 

And it’s clear just how much of a community the band amasses. Whilst people were stumbling around left, right and centre in the mosh pit, others would rush to get everyone back on their feet, wanting to make sure everyone else is having just as good a time as they are. The audience were all united in their sheer energy— Bleeds standouts “Townies” and “Elderberry Wine” took the form of singalongs with what felt like every voice in the room. A shared joke of audience members raising their hands up into a  ‘W’ shape, causing the band to comment multiple times on the crazy amount of “gang signs” and “Weezer fans” in the room, felt like it tied everyone there together in dialogue, the crowd energetically responding to the band and the band responding to the slightly unhinged crowd. Pretty early on, Hartzman commented on just how much she was interacting with the Melbourne audiences across their two nights at Max Watts: “there’s a science to this shit that we haven’t figured out”, which was met with several cheers of “we’re here for science!” 

This community-focused approach to the gig also came through in the band’s own thoughts on country music and the United States in general. Hartzman definitely understood the crowd’s booing of U.S. politicians, but was quick to point out similar problems here in Australia— “I know about One Nation”, she mentioned— both countries are still actively supporting a genocide. For Wednesday, their country influences are reflective of the people, of the community, of the love for songwriting, not the politicians who oversee them. The show’s final two songs, then, were marked by a sense of anger shared throughout the room. The band called for a free Palestine and encouraged shouts of “Fuck ICE!” during the roaring rollercoaster of a penultimate song “Bull Believer”, and the violent, thrashing final song “Wasp” begun with a crowd-led chant of “fuck Pauline!”.

The sentiment left at the end of the show, as my energy had been drained from me in a cathartic session of screams, was one of togetherness. Both Australia and the States are going through a rough time, and Hartzman is right in that politicians aren’t the ones helping us get through it. More than ever, we need to rely on the people around us, be they friends, neighbours, or even the person who helps you back up to your feet at a concert before you both get straight back into the pit. And there’s no better reminder of this than live music, coming together to collectively scream our frustrations and then dance with joy in a sold-out room with one of the best bands active today.