Seen at King Tuts - Drive -By Truckers

 

Drive-By Truckers 

Saturday 23rd November  2002                   £7.00         Ticket No:1  3

Tuesday 2nd December   2003                      £7.50        Ticket No:  GA2  4

Monday 5th September    2005                     £10.00      Ticket No: GA4 24

I don't know whether I've seen Drive-By Truckers live anywhere other than King Tuts. I'm 95% sure that I haven't but there is a sneaky wee bit of me that thinks I might have, but  if so I'm not sure where.

One think is for sure and that is that these three concerts covered the time when, for me, they were at their peak. From a period when Jason Isbell was on board (giving them a third great songwriter and singer alongside Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley) and before they became progressively rockier.

The band grew in confidence and popularity during this period and easily sold out Tuts for the later two shows at least. I don't recall one concert being necessarily any better than the others (they were all great) but over time I suppose there was an opportunity to hear new songs from more recent albums.

I've gone in order with a track each from the three albums which preceded these shows

Southern Rock Opera was released in September 2001 on the Soul Dump label and subsequently re-released by Lost Highway in 2002 It was their third album and the one which brought them to my attention and to most other folk as well. It was a concept album of sorts with songs being linked with references to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Jason Isbell was not on this album but had replaced Rob Malone in late 2001 so was part of the lineup in 2002

The show in November 2002 probably road tested a number of songs from Decoration Day  which was released in June 2003 and  which would certainly have comprised most of the songs on offer in December 2003.

The Dirty South was released in August 2004 with A Blessing and a Curse out in April 2006. Therefore the show in September 2005 was just about bang in the middle and would feature songs from both. I never got round to picking up A Blessing and a Curse which suggests that I had moved on by them.

I picked up The Big To-Do and a burn of Go- Go Boots but is was not until 2020's magnificent The Unraveling that they began to catch my attention and to feel relevant again.

Drive-By Truckers -Dead,Drunk and Naked

Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day

Drive-By Truckers - The Sands of Iwo Jima