Drive-By Truckers Bring 20-plus Years of Southern Rock to Rev Room

by Julian Spivey

Julian Spivey Photo

​The Drive-By Truckers returned to The Revolution Room in Little Rock, Ark. on Monday, Nov. 15 for a show of career-spanning songs that rocked the house, even if Monday nights are the least rock & roll night of the week.
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The Drive-By Truckers, carrying on their special brand of Southern alternative rock, are now more than 20 years into being one of the best and last original groups in rock music.

If you’ve never been to one of their shows it’s done with original members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, the two songwriters and vocalists of the group, switching off on song after song all night long – something you rarely see these days from any artist.

The show began with Cooley’s “Slow Ride Argument” off the group’s 2020 album The Unraveling and Hood began his portion of the set with “Heroin Again” off the same album.

I enjoy both songwriters immensely, but I think I’ve come to find over the years that I connect with Cooley’s songs a bit more both on the group’s records and in their live shows (though I do believe both were at their peak on 2016’s American Band).

My favorite performances of Monday night were Cooley’s “Gravity’s Gone,” off 2006’s A Blessing and a Curse, “Ramon Casiano,” off American Band and “Marry Me,” off 2003’s Decoration Day.  

Among Hood’s best offerings of the evening were “Thoughts & Prayers,” off The Unraveling, and “Hell No, I Ain’t Happy,” from Decoration Day.

One of the night’s most interesting moments came at the end of Hood’s “Lookout Mountain” late in the show when he noticed a bit of a ruckus going on. I had noticed a bit of a tussle near the front of the stage, some heated conversation and then a man get hit in the head with what looked like the slowest punch I’ve ever seen in my life. Hood asked the audience if everything and everyone was OK and had the guilty party ejected from the Rev Room with some colorful language.

The band played a jam-packed 26-song setlist and I must admit for me personally the show began to drag a bit toward the end, but I must add I don’t feel most of the packed audience felt this way. I think they were into it from start-to-finish. I was more into the set the band performed the last time I saw them at the Rev Room in 2018. I’m also kinda bummed the group hasn’t performed my favorite song of their repertoire “Zip City” both times I’ve seen them, despite it being a frequent addition to their set list.

Drive-By Truckers finished out their performance with a three-song performance of “Let There Be Rock,” “Shut Up and Get on the Plane” and “Angels and Fuselage,” from their 2001 double-album Southern Rock Opera, which is in part about the final moments of the original Lynyrd Skynyrd before the 1977 plane crash.

Buffalo Nichols, an extremely talented blues-rock guitarist from Milwaukee, Wis., opened the show for the Truckers with a combination of blues covers and original stuff from his new self-titled album, including “These Things” and “Living Hell.”