DBT tour notes

There's a new page on the Drive-By Truckers website , tour notes written by group co-founder and lead raconteur, Patterson Hood.

This is what Patterson had to say about the show I saw at the Fillmore two weekends ago:

Our friday night set was a little sluggish to my taste, Brad broke his kick pedal in two on song one (Feb 14) and we had to whip out Bulldozers and Dirt (usually a late night staple when played nowadays) to cover a bit of time while he replaced it.

I didn't really notice any lack of energy, and hearing B&D so early on the set was awesome, and really got the crowd going. I like the fact that he's not complacent, though. This is something I definitely agree with:

We were starting to adjust to the shorter sets that a double bill required, although it did sometimes seem that we were just really kicking it into overdrive when it was required that we call it a night.

This is true of a lot of great live bands, like the Grateful Dead and Guided By Voices, to name two diametically opposed (GBV could play twenty songs in the time it took the Dead to play two) but equally awesome examples. With both of those bands, the first hour could sometimes drag a bit, then at some point there would be this sudden click, and then the rest of the night would be magic.

At the Fillmore show, it was the song "Marry Me" when I felt DBT really lock-in. After that point they played less of their new songs, which don't quite seem to bring it live the way their older material does. I'm not sure why-because I'm less familiar with them, or because they were, unlike most of DBT's songs, written in the studio instead of on the road. I'll have to see DBT again though, before I can really answer that question.

Right now I'm formenting plans to attend the Drive-By Truckers show at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC on July 15th. Believe it or not, this would not be the first time I've flown across the country to see a concert in DC-I flew there in 2004 to see RUSH on their 30th Anniversary Tour.