THE DIRTY SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN: Drive-By Truckers, The Fillmore, 3/27/08
The Drive-By Truckers are pleased to announce a 23-date co-headlining tour with their friends The Hold Steady, which stops at the Electric Factory November 8th. The bands will alternate who closes the shows throughout the tour, pre-sale begins Tuesday, August 19, and the public on-sale starts Friday, August 22. The tour is aptly named the Rock and Roll Means well tour. The name of the tour is taken from a lyric of one of Mike Cooley’s songs, “Marry Me.” The line is one of Craig Finn’s favorite lyrics (which he often quotes) “rock and roll means well but can’t help telling young boys lies.” Amen.
WORTH REPEATING: 
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The Drive-By Truckers write songs about the dirty South, where life is hard and folks die soft and squishy and often emphysemic, dirty deeds get done dirt cheap, and everyone goes to church but nobody really goes to heaven. These songs are like the weeds in the cracks of the trailer park, or the pile of broken beer bottles in the woods, or the lipstick traces on the stubbed-out Kools overflowing the ashtray. Oh, the things they have seen. It also bears mentioning that the Drive-By Truckers totally rock, more specifically they rock in that sweet spot where Lynyrd meets Skynyrd.
As was the case Thursday night at the Fillmore, where the Truckers put on a barn-burning two hour hoedown of southern-fried rock for a rowdy, sold out crowd. The Truckers have two main singer-songwriter-guitarists these days: Patterson Hood, burly and bearded, whose voice sounds alternately like an angry Neil Young or a stoned Don Henley; and Mike Cooley, a tall drink of water who bears a passing resemblance to Townes Van Zandt, and sings like a honky-tonk Mick Jagger. It goes without saying that both these gentlemen totally shred as axemen. Providing crunchy Telecaster reinforcement and gorgeous pedal steel atmospherics was third guitarist John Neff. Anchoring
this rowdy crew was drummer Brad Morgan who looks like Allen Ginsberg and never left the pocket and a bassist Shonna Tucker who looks like she was plucked from behind a diner counter but is acquainted with the notion that great bass players should be felt — preferably in the chest — not heard. And just for added Southern gentleman gravitas, legendary sideman Spooner Oldham is playing keyboards on this tour.
The Truckers are supporting the new and thoroughly twangtastic Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, which was generously essayed Thursday night. Personally, I prefer Cooley’s songs — not to mention his twangy snarl and dead-eye for dark, pulpy detail — and “Lisa’s Birthday,” “Self-Destructive Zones” and “3 Dimes Down” did not disappoint. Which is not to say that Hood’s “Daddy Needs A Drink” and “The Righteous Path” didn’t also see the world through the glass darkly, and in fact his ode to the lowlife, “The Company I Keep,” was one of the show stoppers. The other one was, appropriately enough, right at the end and like all their best songs it documents the extraordinary wreckage of ordinary lives. It’s a fairly astonishing song called “Puttin’ People On The Moon,” sung by Hood in the first person, about an Alabama Wal-Mart clerk forced to sell dope to pay for his wife’s chemo. Now, ain’t that America?
Tour dates after the jump…
Drive-By Truckers & The Hold Steady – Fall Tour Dates
Thu 30-Oct Louisville, KY Coyotes @ City Block
Fri 31-Oct Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
Sat 1-Nov Atlanta, GA Tabernacle
Sun 2-Nov Tallahassee, FL The Moon @ FSU
Mon 3-Nov Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theater
Wed 5-Nov State College, PA The State Theatre
Thu 6-Nov New York, NY Terminal 5
Fri 7-Nov New York, NY Terminal 5
Sat 8-Nov Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory
Sun 9-Nov Boston, MA Orpheum Theater
Tue 11-Nov Toronto, ON Phoenix Theater
Wed 12-Nov Pittsburgh, PA Carnegie Music Hall
Thu 13-Nov Bloomington, IN Bluebird
Fri 14-Nov Chicago, IL Riviera Theater
Sat 15-Nov Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
Sun 16-Nov Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
Wed 19-Nov Boise, ID Big Easy
Thu 20-Nov Seattle, WA Showbox
Fri 21-Nov Seattle, WA Showbox
Sat 22-Nov Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
Sun 23-Nov San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
Mon 24-Nov San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
Tue 25-Nov Los Angeles, CA Wiltern
[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA]