Concert Review: Drive-By Truckers (The Pyrle)

BY JILL POOLE

Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood have been touring as the Drive-By Truckers for 30 years - and they’re STILL having fun. Founders Hood and Cooley, along with multi instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, drummer Brad Morgan, and bassist Matt Patton took the crowd along with them Thursday night at The Pyrle. This is a band that clearly still loves to be on a stage, in front of a good crowd - and it was a great crowd.

I’ve seen the Truckers play in front of 30 people and I’ve seen them in front of 2,000 and the energy is the same. They did play “Hell No, I Ain’t Happy,” “3 Dimes Down,” and “Where the Devil Don’t Stay” both times. When you’ve written 14 studio albums worth of songs - you’ve got a lot to choose from. “Gravity’s Gone” and “My Sweet Annette” also made last night’s list. This year marks 25 years since their album Decoration Day was released and a lot of tonight’s set was from that time.

These guys don’t offer up much banter (and after seeing Hood’s solo show in Asheville this year - he can tell a great story), they just play. For an hour and a half, the guitars and the lyrics tell the stories. Both Cooley and Hood were born in Alabama and the band was born in Athens, GA and that southern gothic angst weaves through most of their songs. It’s a guitar forward sound, loud, angry but somehow fun at the same time.

The energy of the night was set by the opening band, Brown Horse. Lead singer and guitarist, Patrick Turner explained how the band started as “a few guys and a dog playing a pub in the middle of nowhere England.” They met DBT at a music festival and ended up opening for them in North Carolina. Nyle Holihan, Turner, Emma Tovall, and Rowan Braham play sort of a grungy Americana and I mean that in a good way. Tovall’s pedal steel and Braham’s accordion were welcome additions to the sound. And the band found an appreciative audience in the DBT fans.

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JILL POOLE

It’s Christmas. I think I was 7. And there’s an album with my presents. The Everly Brothers Greatest Hits. I was hooked - I still have that record and a few more. On my 16th birthday, I got a job just to buy a real stereo, and more records. I still have all that “vinyl” as we call it today, and my 1977 Advent speakers connect to a Sonos system now.

When I was younger I had a love-hate relationship with live shows but it’s all love now. And I always watched the photographers in the pit. (And tried to take the perfect shot myself on an increasingly capable iphone) But for the last few years I’ve had an actual camera again and it’s so much better.

I want people who couldn’t BE there, who couldn’t get up to the stage - I want them to see what I saw - to feel what I felt.

You can’t hear a photograph, but sometimes... if it’s a good shot - it’s almost as if you could.

Read Jill's posts here.