Drive-By Truckers

I just got back from a Drive-By Truckers show at First Avenue. Good, solid southern rock and roll, complete with a three axe attack. The Lynyrd Skynyrd influence is definitely there, but the crunchy guitar evokes Neil Young more than any southern rock bands. The three guitarists all write songs and sing, but Patterson Hood is obviously the main creative force behind the band, and, overall, I'd guess Springsteen has influenced him more than any other musician.

DBT (which the crowd annoyingly chanted during the 2-minute break prior to the encore) songs focus on life in the south, but rarely mention anything remotely happy. Some of the song topics: incest, depression, divorce, suicide, meth addiction, forclosure- you get the picture. The song titles alone often tell the story: "Sink Hole," "Hell No, I Ain't Happy," "Your Daddy Hates Me," "Loaded Gun in the Closet." Hood does seem like the real deal, though, and I think many of his songs really are autobiographical. He sang about how rock & roll saved his life, and I believed it.

The band consisted of three guys playing guitar and singing, a pedal steel player who looked bored out of his skull most of the night (I don't think he helped his bandmates polish off the big bottle of Jack Daniels they were passing around), a bearded drummer who looked like a cross between Levon Helm and Matisyahu, and a female bass player. The bass player annoyed me for much of the night, because she had this weird, twitchy way of nodding her head to the beat- it almost looked like the was having seizures. I was also struck by how she looked a little out of place at times. The guitarists would often turn and point the necks of their instruments out over the crowd, and there was something extremely phallic/masculinely sexual about the whole thing. Rock & Roll is dominated by men, and maybe I'm just guilty of discrimination, but it always strikes me as odd when I see a female playing bass/guitar/drums in a rock band. Maybe future generations won't feel that way, since more and more little girls are growing up playing an instrument other than piano or violin. Or maybe rock & roll will always be a boys' club. Or maybe I'm just a closeted misogynist.

Parts of the show were borderline creepy, as we could hear Patterson's influences come through, clear as day, in certain songs' vocals. We heard The Boss, Tom Petty, Jeff Tweedy, Neil Young, Don Henly, Mick Jagger, and more.

The only downer was the fact that there were three young jackasses right in front of us for much of the show. They were smoking cigarettes non-stop (and security never called them on it), so we had smoke in our face all night. They kept bumping into us, and, between the three of them, took about 50 cell phone-camera pictures of the band.

Drive-By Truckers played for over two and a half hours straight, which was damn impressive. They're the kind of band that doesn't chat between songs- there was usually about 2 seconds between the end of one song and a guitar riff kicking off the next. If they come to your town, I highly recommend checking them out- well worth it- heartfealt vocals and wicked guitar solos.