Friday evening on June 28th was a quintessentially beautiful summer night in the city and a nearly ideal setting for gig number five of the Drive By Truckers’ six night engagement at Brooklyn Bowl in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The deep Bowie and Pink Floyd cuts emanating from the house speakers pre-show would be an indication of what was to come as the high brow southern rockers treated the crowd to a career-spanning set that leaned heavily towards groove oriented, spacey, and atmospheric songs and shied away from the more straight forward, front-porch country material.
The band came out swinging, getting straight down to business like the true professionals they are. Plunging into their set with guitarist and frontman Mike Cooley’s “Filthy and Fried”, the first single from their solid 2016 release American Band, before fellow guitarist and co-frontman Patterson Hood would take the reins leading the group through an extra rocking version of “Righteous Path”. The latter tune featured impenetrable walls of guitar while showing off Hood and Cooley’s intricate interplay and double threat as songwriters and vocalists. The duo would trade songs back and forth in this manner throughout the entirety of the performance.
“Used To Be A Cop” from 2011’s Go-Go Boots showcased Patterson Hood’s uncanny gift for assuming a character and writing an entirely believable and authentic story through that person’s lens. Hood enraptured the crowd with a tale told from the perspective of a paranoid ex-police officer suffering from PTSD, managing to both commiserate with the protagonist while simultaneously cast a scrutinizing eye. The yarn spun out over a drum and bass heavy, Pink Floyd- inspired groove with shards of spiky, jagged guitar driven through it and was undoubtably a standout moment.
“The Southern Thing” didn’t come until the second half of the marathon set that stretched over two hours, but it could have been considered the crux of the performance and probably best exemplified what the Drive By Truckers stand for. Patterson summed it up in the song’s introduction explaining it’s about “the duality of the Southern Thing” before unleashing his mighty yawp over the thoughtful and poignant lyrics – “Ain’t about no hatred better raise a glass, its a little about some rebels but it ain’t about the past, ain’t about no foolish pride, ain’t about no flag, hate’s the only thing that my truck would want to drag”!
Other noteworthy moments from the night were “Sinkhole”- possibly their most badass song with its unmistakable lead guitar theme, two Mike Cooley fan favorites “Self Destructive Zones” and “Gravity’s Gone”, and “The Tough Sell”, which featured groovy, 70’s inspired psychedelic instrumentation with a spoken word style lyrical delivery.
Deciding to forgo the formalities of an encore, the Truckers forged ahead pushing their time limit to the brink and closing out the show serenely by dedicating the closing track of 2014’s English Ocean “Grand Canyon” to “loved ones and departed” and disassembling the band one member at a time, leaving the audience with an empty stage and a drone of reverb.
