Photo by Kaden Shallat
If you went to first night of The Drive-By Truckers’ two-night stand in Athens hoping for some hard rock, you definitely weren’t let down, though you probably had to wait patiently through the opening act, Jay Gonzalez and the Guilty Pleasures, who were operating on more of a Billy Joel-level of bam-thump-I’m-a-fucking-man than the Truckers—who, now that I have seen their show, I have no doubt, are men.
This should be evidenced, if by nothing else, the sheer number of frat boys wearing generic, expensive clothes cheering them on. Honestly, I felt a little sad for the Truckers, because while each hook and climax of music warranted raucous cheering and fists-in-air from the audience, Patterson Hood’s between-song banter seemed a bit out of place. For instance, he said, “It’s a sad day when a man who works hard for his money makes less than a man who moves money around,†or something like that. Because of the way he said it, there were cheers, though significantly fewer than during the songs. Either Hood didn’t realize or care who his audience was, or the crowd had forgotten that artists tend to be liberals, even if the mood and aura of their art exudes tough-worn manliness. The sad truth is that probably both of those things are true, and most artists, especially musicians, have to get used to selling their art to whoever will buy it, even if they started off as innocent and sincere as they could possibly be.
Photo by Kaden Shallat
Still, I can’t complain about the overall quality of the show. The Truckers definitely know how to play some low-down, countrified rock n’ roll, though they didn’t play my personal favorite, “Hell No I Ain’t Happy.†(Turns out they saved it for the second night.) Even without that song, there were still plenty of depression-cleansing bangers: “Dead, Drunk, and Naked,†“Too Much Sex,†and “The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town,†among others. And, political asides aside, Hood knows how to get an audience excited. He got down multiple times right at the edge of the stage and shredded, tongue-out, at the first row of audience members. These guys definitely know how to enjoy themselves. Go and see them if you can.
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