As they say ‘Good things come to those who wait’ and fans of Drive By Truckers had to wait patiently for almost three years to get to see them perform live because of that dreaded ‘C’ word (covid, by the way) and last Saturday night at Dublin’s Vicar St venue these southern American rockers rolled into town to continue their European tour to the delight of their Irish fans, the wait was finally over.
It all kicked off around 8 pm when support act Jerry Joseph, himself a former member off the DBT’s, played a most enjoyable energetic set mostly from his very own 2020 album release “The beautiful madness” and backed up by …eh … The Drive By Truckers who were not so cleverly disguised as ‘The Stiff Boys’. Jerry had the stage and interacted with the crowd in between songs telling stories of old and overall was very entertaining opening.
By now the venue had quickly filled up in anticipation of the main act who were to appear… again but this time as the Drive By Truckers, you with me! A quick introduction by lead vocalist Patterson Hood stating how happy they were to be back playing live and to be back in Ireland kicking things off with ‘shake an pine’ which quickly had the largely above 45+ age bracket, denim shirt and jeans clad punters in attendance smiling and a toe tapping away.
The set included such songs like ‘Women Without Whiskey’ a song close to my own heart, long story, and ‘One Of These Days’, ‘The Driver’ and from their title track from their most recent album release ‘Welcome to club Xlll‘. The aforementioned Jerry Joseph was invited back on stage to assist in the track ‘Hell No I Ain’t Happy’ but happy they all were and all were having great fun on stage tonight. Patterson was ably assisted by the ever so cool Mike Cooley on guitar and the ever so trippy Matt Patton on bass who smiled all the way through, as did the crowd who swayed the night away.
Their final song of the night was an epic 15 minute version of ‘Angels And Fuselage’ and as the song was coming to the end the members, one by one, took a bow and exited stage left leaving the spotlight on Jay Gonzalez on keyboards who had the crowd in a trance and they hung on till he pressed his final key then cue the enormous rapturous applause.
A fantastic night, catch them if you can.
