At the House of Blues, the band drew lovingly from the new album – Cooley’s Birthday Boy ranks with his best songs, as does his barreling boogie Get Downtown – but also threw Truckers devotees a boatload of treats, cherrypicking oldies like Road Cases and Love Like This, tossing up a tasty Boston tribute with the rare The Night GG Allin Came To Town, and blazing through Truckers live staples like Zip City, Women Without Whiskey and Lookout Mountain.
Patterson and Cooley looked like they were having a blast and played like it, too. Bassist Shonna Tucker knocked it out of the park for her new It’s Gonna Be (I Told You So). John Neff – whoa, John Neff! – was a warrior on guitar and pedal steel, Brad Morgan throttled from behind the kit, and designated new guy Jay Gonzalez added heft through keyboards, continuing to work through how best to inject himself.
No moss on this gang. And plenty of poignancy amid the guitar-heavy fireworks; the Truckers don’t let a little loud-n-proud swagger file down the edges of songs like Sinkhole or brighten the darkness of tracks like Shut Up And Get On The Plane. Bleak observations occasionally leavened with wry humor are the vocation; blistering rock ‘n’ roll is the conduit.
The great thing about the Truckers is that when they get going – when the train gets into runaway mode – they’re built for speed and performance. Setlist composition has always been a strength for this band, and late in the show, when the climaxes kept coming (Hell No I Ain’t Happy) and coming (Lookout Mountain) and coming (Let There Be Rock), you were rocking so hard you didn’t know how exhausted you were. Even the closing cover of Rockin’ in the Free World felt right; the band didn’t so much as sing it as holler it as a statement of purpose. They owned it. And us.
Lucero, which played the second opening slot following an encouraging set from Langhorne Slim, is another band that latches on to momentum and uses it to slay an audience. They were every bit the glove-fit complement the Truckers needed to ensure a long, rollicking night, and they played much of their set with a Memphis-style horn section, mixing tender tunes about mother’s love with curled-lip rockers about strip clubs and wild nights.
2 Responses
Nice review Chad. It’s funny you mention them being in the conversation for best live rock band. When I first really got in to them – which for better or worse was because I loved A Blessing and a Curse – I remember being totally floored at all the talk about the expectations for them to be the biggest band in the world. I was like “damn, where have I been?”
There’s definitely something about them really seems to draw people into to thinking BIG.
Great post! These guys put on an amazing show and the new record is seriously awesome. Anyone who hasn’t heard the new stuff yet should really get on that: http://www.myspace.com/drivebytruckers