As the Drive-By Truckers ambled on stage Tuesday night, a jubilant diehard held a "Mike Cooley for President" T-shirt high above his head. Fans wearing the same homemade shirt dotted the Big Easy.
Amused, the thrift-store cool Southerner leaned into his microphone while he fiddled with his Gibson guitar: "Thanks, but I don't need the hassle," Cooley said. Then, perhaps reconsidering his powers of influence, Cooley announced his withdrawal and endorsed Barack Obama.
Illinois' favorite senator may have lured 14,169 fans to Taco Bell Arena, but it's hard to imagine they were half as enthusiastic as these 651 Drive-By Truckers supporters.
The Truckers had only played Boise once before, opening for Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons at a much-smaller Neurolux in 2002. Since then, the Athens, Ga., band has evolved into one of rock's most critically acclaimed acts. This wasn't a homecoming; it just felt like one.
The Truckers sensed the energy. Despite touring behind a new CD, "Brighter Than Creation's Dark," the quintet dove deep into its back catalogue for two joyful, exhausting hours, hammering the audience with a set crammed with hard-rocking anthems. The Truckers opened with the punishing "That Man I Shot," a strangely malevolent confessional from the perspective of a soldier in Iraq. Patterson Hood forgot some of the lyrics and faked his way through. Nobody cared. It ruled.
Hood and Cooley exuded the confidence of bandleaders in a decade-old group in its prime. The lanky, cigarette-smoking Cooley, who recently had a hernia operation, handled his ax as easily as an auto mechanic does a wrench. Falling to his knees as sweat dropped off his beard during guitar solos, Hood showed no signs of the cough he'd battled earlier in the day.
If anyone was worried that the addition of pedal steel player John Neff might "countrify" the Truckers, um ... no. Neff's steel gave a haunting, floating-cotton quality to darker songs such as "Sink Hole." Other times, his pedal steel simply complemented Cooley's slide guitar.
Some of the best moments were when the Truckers rearranged old favorites. "Puttin' People on the Moon," a detail-filled diary about the poor South, got reinvented by Brad Morgan's tribal drumming. "Seems everyone I know is gettin' cancer every year," Hood sang, raising his arms as Morgan thundered an impending doom. The band menaced in front of a nightmare-red backdrop until the tune collapsed into a wall of blinding strobe lights and sword-fighting guitars. Other Truckers classics - "Ronnie and Neil," "Where the Devil Don't Stay," "Gravity's Gone" - were played straight and retained their fist-pumping, singalong qualities.
Neff sometimes switched to guitar, making for a deadly trio of gunslingers. During "Marry Me" - when Cooley sang one of his best lines, "Rock 'n' roll means well, but it can't help telling young boys lies" - the triple-ax riff mid-song was so heavy it could've slaughtered pigs.
Still, newcomers to the Truckers may have been mystified by the delirious whoops and spilled beers in the crowd. Heads banged. Couples danced. That T-shirt got held up constantly. One unimpressed concertgoer likened the Truckers' audience to the Grateful Dead's rabid following: Like, what's the big deal about this blue-collar band?
It's true: Ragged vocalists Hood and Cooley wouldn't make it through the first audition on "American Idol." Bassist Shonna Tucker is even less-gifted as an occasional singer. She had a trace of Siamese cat yowl going during "Home Field Advantage," a tune that could be construed as a dig at her ex-husband, former Truckers singer-guitarist Jason Isbell. Trading swigs from a bottle of Jack Daniel's on stage, the Truckers were flawed yet they awed. They rocked loud and proud. You either got it or you didn't.
The deafening encore was rewarding and spectacular. (And not just because Hood ditched his guitar, grabbed a mike and staggered through a great, way-old tune called "Buttholeville.") Embracing fans with the simple extension of one arm, Hood did what he does best: Told a vivid story with the power of a preacher.
This one, called "Let There Be Rock," was about Hood missing his chance to see the South's most cherished band before its legendary plane crash in 1977. The song climaxed as hundreds of blissfully intoxicated fans sang and celebrated: "So I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I sure saw Ozzy Osbourne," Hood proclaimed, sweating as the entire room screamed along. "And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I sure saw AC/DC ... with Bon Scott singing, LET THERE BE ROCK! Bon Scott singing, LET THERE BE ROCK!"
New York-based openers The Felice Brothers borrowed heavily from the folk- and country-rock blueprint of The Band and Bob Dylan. You couldn't argue with their enthusiasm. Stomping tin, scratching a washboard and mashing an accordion, the raucous group was hard not to like a little. There's a good chance that the Felice boys' energy will be amplified in the smaller Bouquet when they headline there March 23.
Michael Deeds: 377-6407
