Drive By Truckers

The Southern Rock Opera, the sprawling double album released by the Drive-By Truckers in 2001, stirred up critical acclaim for the Athens, Ga. – based quintet despite the band’s relative obscurity. That same acclaim has followed them since, through two more albums and countless live shows. But while the Truckers became darlings of the press and topped “best-of” lists over the last couple of years, their live shows have become those of legend. Two-and-a-half our displays of sweat and grit, their shows pull from a vast repertoire of southern gothic ilk that is often rough around the edges, yet intensely real. With the release of last year’s Dirty South - an album that explores the dark underbelly of the southland and more particularly the trials and tribulations affecting north Alabama, the birthplace of four of the five members, the band introduced the album during two hometown shows at Athens’ 40 Watt, with both nights recorded for posterity and now released in the form of a DVD called Live at the 40 Watt.

Leading off with the raucous backwoods tale “Where the Devil Don’t Stay,” the band leads a sold-out crowd through 22 songs culled from the two shows, and interspersed with backstage footage and candid interviews with the Truckers guitarists Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell and Mike Cooley, bassist Shonna Tucker and drummer Brad “Easy B” Morgan. But despite the bill as CD release parties and while concentrating on newer material, the DVD spans the Truckers catalogue stepping back to earlier compositions like “The Living Bubba” from 1998’s alt-country classic Gangstabilly, and “Tornadoes,” a Hood-penned track from his low-fi solo album Killers and Stars. Throughout Live at the 40 Watt, the braided three-guitar attack is rooted in the impenetrable rhythm of Tucker and Morgan. With Hood, Cooley and Isbell sharing singing duties, the range of emotions and styles – from redneck anthems to southern-bred ballads - takes center stage. Visually and sonically, the DVD is only a holler away from being there. The often dim-lit stage captures the feel of the cavernous room, with multiple camera angles that vividly depict the rock and roll hedonism that took place those two nights, set to a soundtrack in 5.1 DTS.

Six albums into a storied career that boasts as much hardship as success, the Truckers have now cemented their reputation as classic songwriters of southern reality. With Live at the 40 Watt, they now have a companion piece; an artifact documenting a couple of performances captured during the band’s continued rise to prominence as one of the best rock and roll bands on the road today. With the tour bus constantly burning up the roadways in the United States, Europe and beyond, and the crowds growing more populated and more spirited with each show, Live at the 40 Watt captures a rock fueled Molotov cocktail that ignites each time the Truckers take the stage.