East Nash Grass and The Cleverlys, both bands featuring virtuosic lineups performing in the bluegrass idiom, earned great applause at Hempstead Hall Friday night. Indeed, the ovation at the end of the evening was of the standing kind. 

East Nash Grass took the stage first, not only playing from their two albums, both available by streaming, but also playing songs from their greater repertoire. Their set list included “I Hear a Choo Choo,” made popular by the Stanley Brothers, which I thought a hip way to begin a concert in railroad hub Hope. “Country Blues,” is an adaptation of a Doc Watson tune called “Nashville Blues,” and included the lyric “I’m Going Back to Arkansas/Gonna stay right there with my ma and pa,” which caused an eruption of shouts. 

Between songs, mandolinist Harry Clark introduced each member, allowing for charming speeches from each one and then a song featuring that musician. Each of the singers were winsome in their various ways, but I was especially taken with fiddler Maddie Denton’s rendition of “Just a Few Old Memories,” a Hazel Dickens masterpiece. 

The band’s closest Arkansas connection other than sung lyrics and saying they were glad to be here, was Clark, their mandolinist who hails from Magnolia. He turned in a wickedly spirited “Papa’s on The Housetop.” 

East Nash Grass played for about an hour and were hard to part with. Whereas their sound was more an intricately wrought sculpting of a unified band sound, the more overtly comedic The Cleverlys put more space between the distinct parts of their soundscape. 

The conceit of the Cleverlys is that they’re a trio comprised of five bluegrass musicians, led by “Digger Cleverly” (Paul Harris), accompanied by his nephews and sons, each of whom affects an impassive attitude in shades, cowboy or porkpie hats and hipster suit as he responds to Digger’s prodding. Such moments made for frequent gutlaughs. 

Even funnier were the often exquisitely inventive adaptations by this jazz-influenced bluegrass ensemble of such modern hip-hop and pop classics as “No Diggity,” “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),”  “I Kissed a Girl,” “Low,” “Creep,” “Love Shack” and many others. You were equal parts dazzled by the arrangement, the sweet licks by the players, the singers’ total commitment and total command of rhythmically complex rap lyrics. Just hearing the down-home accented Digger croon his way through Ed Sheeren’s “Shape of You,” missing not a syllable of Ed’s ultra-wordy paean to new love, was enough to break me up several times. 

I needed an oxygen tent before it was over, not just because I was laughing, but because I was saying, “Wow” at The Cleverlys’ playing and vocal harmonies. 

If you missed this show, you missed one of the best of the year.  Try to catch one or both acts wherever you can.