Hardcore fans of the Drive-By Truckers are constantly debating what album is the band’s very best. This makes sense, as the Truckers have managed to spend the last three decades nurturing a dedicated cult following while progressing their sound with each studio release. Yet, while some fans may be partial to the Jason Isbell-era albums Decoration Day, The Dirty South, and A Blessing and a Curse or perhaps the more refined, more politically-charged 2016 effort American Band, most would agree that the Truckers’ most grandiose studio effort is surely Southern Rock Opera. Infamously released on September 11, 2001, the sprawling double album marked Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley’s first deep exploration of the duality and complexity of the South that would define the identity of the Truckers for the coming decades. Though the twenty-third anniversary of an album isn’t exactly a milestone, it feels fitting and perhaps overdue for the Truckers to honor one of their biggest musical achievements with an ambitious tour dedicated to celebrating it. On Monday, July 1st, they brought their tour to Portland, Oregon for a show at the Crystal Ballroom.
Anyone catching the band on this tour should know this is not a typical Truckers show, nor is it a band simply playing an album front to back (that type of move is not in their musical DNA). It offers something different and new in the form of a time capsule of a band that deserves to be reflected. This was evident from the strange backward tape playing as the band took the stage while beams of daylight sliced across the venue. This was fitting as Patterson Hood growled the violent, ominous lyrics to “Days of Graduation” that segued straight into the rock and roll ferociousness of “Ronnie and Neil.” From here on out, the band zig-zagged through Southern Rock Opera tunes while injecting occasional non-album tracks that often shared similar political parallels. On “72 (This Highway’s Mean),” Mike Cooley livened it up with country-rock glory, while Hood introduced “Dead, Drunk and Naked” with the story behind the song’s protagonist. In one of the more touching moments of the night, the audience helped him remember the lyrics when he forgot them mid-song before Cooley steered the band into his rockabilly shredder “Guitar Man Upstairs.”
If there was one hallmark of the show besides Hood’s storytelling and commentary on the fucked up state of the country, it was the sheer tightness of the band at this juncture in time. This could be heard on American Band’s “Ramon Casiano” as well as “The Southern Thing” with its chunky, marching power chords that gave the tune a David Bowie-like quality. It was exciting for the fans to hear songs that have made very few live appearances since 2002, like the freewheeling bar band alt-country of “Wallace” and the twangy, previously unreleased guitar rocker “Mystery Song.” These songs fit in well alongside longtime Cooly favorites like “Zip City” and the mournful “Women without Whiskey.”
Careening into the final batch of songs and closing in on the two-hour mark, the band unloaded some of their biggest rockers to take it on home. “Life In a Factory” blasted off to oblivion before bleeding straight into the combustible Cooley staple “Shut Up and Get On the Plane,” “Greenville to Baton Rouge,” and the set-closing “Angels and Fuselage” that was prefaced with Hood railing against the culture of fear and shouting “fuck the Supreme Court” before unleashing some of the best interplay with Cooley of the night on one of Southern Rock Opera’s most timeless tunes. The song was given even more power with the help of Kyleen King on viola, who stuck around when the band returned to the stage to encore with their take on the underrated Southern rock band Wet Willie’s soulful “Keep On Smilin’” that felt like a true Cooley/Hood duet. They followed it up with one of the biggest numbers of the night, inviting The Decemberists’ Chris Funk to join the band for a monster take on Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World.” Both of these encores seemed to bring the show full circle and nod to some of their major influences, leaving the fans to soak up the past, present, and future of the Drive-By Truckers as they continue tearing up stages with their untouchable rock shows.
All photos by Greg Homolka
