Spring Break
Let there be Truckers
WAITES LASETER
Issue date: 1/20/09 Section: Variety
Without Hood's storytelling, these songs would seem almost simple in their snapshot emotional impression. Live, however, they take on a much deeper and personal meaning.
Just listening to "Road Cases" off 2001's "Southern Rock Opera" won't clue you in to the more subtle story of how MTV destroyed many popular bands. Hearing Hood describe the back story in person makes these songs much more precious.
Cooley and Hood, along with newest Trucker John Neff, work their guitars around each other, weaving a gritty musical tapestry of the South. The sound has Georgia red clay under its fingernails. It's loud, it's raw, and like a speeding locomotive, it dares you to get in its way.
Like any good Southern band, the Truckers are here to have fun. The band very rarely uses a set list; instead, they decide the first few songs before they get on stage and pick the rest as they go along. This makes every Drive-By Truckers show different and exciting. Playing to the home crowd this weekend, the shows focused heavily on their older catalog, primarily "Southern Rock Opera." They kept the set list fairly diverse, balancing the songs that everybody expects to hear with deep album cuts.
On stage, there were multiple gallon jugs of Jack Daniels being passed around amongst the band members, as well as quite a few beers. The lower the level of the Jack Daniels bottle, the bigger the grin on Hood's face and the bouncier bassist Shonna Tucker became. With his curly hair, rosy cheeks and devilish grin, Hood resembled a 7-year-old kid who just found his daddy's rifle. Both Friday and Saturday night's shows ended with a cover of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died." As the band played the song, Hood held the bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand as he nearly hit the roof of the club hoisting his microphone stand into the air.
On Saturday night, the culmination of the three-night stand, Hood thanked the crowd for "one of the best weekends of my life." A wasteland of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans littered the floor of the 40 Watt at the end of every night.
Just listening to "Road Cases" off 2001's "Southern Rock Opera" won't clue you in to the more subtle story of how MTV destroyed many popular bands. Hearing Hood describe the back story in person makes these songs much more precious.
Cooley and Hood, along with newest Trucker John Neff, work their guitars around each other, weaving a gritty musical tapestry of the South. The sound has Georgia red clay under its fingernails. It's loud, it's raw, and like a speeding locomotive, it dares you to get in its way.
Like any good Southern band, the Truckers are here to have fun. The band very rarely uses a set list; instead, they decide the first few songs before they get on stage and pick the rest as they go along. This makes every Drive-By Truckers show different and exciting. Playing to the home crowd this weekend, the shows focused heavily on their older catalog, primarily "Southern Rock Opera." They kept the set list fairly diverse, balancing the songs that everybody expects to hear with deep album cuts.
On stage, there were multiple gallon jugs of Jack Daniels being passed around amongst the band members, as well as quite a few beers. The lower the level of the Jack Daniels bottle, the bigger the grin on Hood's face and the bouncier bassist Shonna Tucker became. With his curly hair, rosy cheeks and devilish grin, Hood resembled a 7-year-old kid who just found his daddy's rifle. Both Friday and Saturday night's shows ended with a cover of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died." As the band played the song, Hood held the bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand as he nearly hit the roof of the club hoisting his microphone stand into the air.
On Saturday night, the culmination of the three-night stand, Hood thanked the crowd for "one of the best weekends of my life." A wasteland of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans littered the floor of the 40 Watt at the end of every night.
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 24
dude
posted 1/22/09 @ 5:57 PM EST
fucking great
progress_Please
posted 1/22/09 @ 7:22 PM EST
Just what this town doesn't need: more hillbilly ignorant redneck bands. Damn rednecks.
Sharon
posted 1/23/09 @ 12:08 PM EST
I had heard this band was supposed to be the up and coming next great band from Athens. So a friend got me in to the show for free. Progress_please is right on target: WTF? Loud, redneck. (Continued…)
bob
posted 1/23/09 @ 2:17 PM EST
Great read, was a hell of a 3 night stand. Props to the whigs and centro-matic as well!!
And to Sharon below me, go back to hot topic and keep on listening to what pitchfork. (Continued…)
NoRedneckAthens
posted 1/24/09 @ 11:53 AM EST
Looks like the whole trailer park turned out for these redneck retards. Get drunk, smoke meth, leave trailer park in old Ford Crown Victoria, go downtown, drink more, be obnoxious, go to 70's rehash Southern rock, smoke meth in bathroom, drink more, tear up club, vomit on street, scrape cars on way home. (Continued…)
You too
posted 1/26/09 @ 10:23 AM EST
It's quite ironic that this troll who makes broad sweeping, generalizations about a entire fanbase founded upon 20 minutes of alleged exposure to DBT is blatantly guilty of the exact same kind of closeminded prejudice that would be expected of racists and klansmen. (Continued…)
Cotter
posted 1/29/09 @ 2:47 PM EST
Good lord,
Sharon and you other jacknuts: Do us all a favor and stop making comments, you are removing all doubt that you don't know wtf you are talking about. (Continued…)
MP
posted 1/29/09 @ 11:41 PM EST
My favorite band can kick your favorite band's @$$!
Russ
posted 1/30/09 @ 7:00 AM EST
This is definitely not a redneck band. Yes, they are loud and in your face, but you went to a rock show, not a night out with John Mayer. What more would you expect. (Continued…)
uga-vet
posted 1/30/09 @ 10:28 AM EST
Please. No more Southern Rock. Please?! The seventies called. They want their band back.
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