Drive-By Truckers have been around forever. And they just keep going. Their breakthrough album called Southern Rock Opera is an album that has very much to do with the band’s Southern upbringing, their identity soaked with those traditions and themes in that raggedy-raw country way (think Lynyrd Syknyrd-esque). But their latest album American Band is very much about America as a whole—relevant, opinionated, and much more of a popular classic rock sound. And DBT aren’t afraid of being vocal (literally) about how they feel about politics, race, violence and current headlines, as heard in songs like “What It Means”: “In fact it’s happened here, and it happened where you’re sitting, wherever that might be. And it happened last weekend, and it will happen again next week.” Whatever the band wanted to say, they’ve said it on this record.
Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood are the founding members of the band, having seen several others come and go throughout the years (including Jason Isbell who later went on to become a successful folk artist). The band’s future was an uncertain one, they felt at one point, but they found new ways to celebrate their identity as musicians and muscled on, continuing to make music, and refusing to let their two-decade history find its way to an end. And they’re having fun.
But, when you have eleven records under your belt like Drive-By Truckers, there’s no room for BS anymore. So when they’re on stage playing live, that’s what it’s all about–fun, fearless rock and roll.
Webster Hall
8 p.m.
$35
With: Kyle Craft
Ticketweb.com
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