Concert Review--Drive-by Truckers, Son Volt, Curt Kirkwood, Albuquerque, NM, April 30, 2006

I should begin this post with a nearly irrefutable statement:

The Drive-by Truckers are the best rock and roll band in America today.

Now that we have that out of the way, to the show proper. Curt Kirkwood from The Meat Puppets opened the show. It was pretty cool. He played some old Meat Puppets songs and I assume some new stuff as well, but it was in that same crazy ass style as the Meat Puppets. The songs were long, didn't make any real sense at all, were played at about 15 different tempos throughout the song, and were a great way to start the night. I don't know that I would have wanted to hear 2 hours of this, but for 40 minutes or so, it really hit the spot. Definitely a good opening act for a show like this.

The problem was that the audience kept fucking talking so much that you could barely hear what he was singing. I'm tempted to attribute this problem to Albuquerque music audiences (more on Albuquerque and music later) but I don't think that was the problem. I've seen this before. When I saw Jon Dee Graham open for Alejandro Escovedo in Seattle last year, he had to get mad at the people near the bar for them to shut up. I guess it must be really hard to be an opening act playing acoustic for a really great closing act that lots of people have come to see, and who are playing electric and can just drown everyone out.

Son Volt was the second act. They were absolutely awful. Now, I'm not a big fan anyway. They've never done much for me. But this was a dreadful show. I was so bored it's hard to express in words. What's really amazing is that the show was both loud and boring. How is this possible? I don't really know but I guess it is. The solos went nowhere. Jay Farrar has the charisma of a rock. No one seemed to be having any fun. The songs all sounded the same. They also seemed to have no heart or spirit in them. The last 4 songs or so Son Volt played were much better--and not surprisingly they were the older songs. The difference in the sheer quality of the older and newer songs was remarkable. If this is typical, Son Volt should never play another show. Jay Farrar seemingly has nothing more to say. Son Volt has to be one of the most overrated bands of the last 10 years.

On the other hand, the Drive-by Truckers kicked much ass. I was fully rocked. This is just such a great band. The songs are spectacular. They have 3 songwriters much superior to Jay Farrar. They had fun. They sang like they gave a fuck. Their guitar solos had meaning. And think about that. Every band uses guitar. But how many bands actually do something with it? How many bands make it worth a damn? How many bands today come up with a riff that you remember? And Drive-by Truckers do this with every song they write.

One of the great things about Drive-by Truckers is how they are rehabilitating one of the most underrated forms of American rock and roll--Southern Rock. They are firmly within that tradition but are taking it new places. Can you ask more of a band than that? And when was the last time a band really made a statement in that genre? The Black Crowes in 1991 or so maybe? Early Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums?

They played a lot of new songs that I didn't know. I wish I had a chance to listen to the new album a few times before I went. One thing that is key for a show like this is to hear the songs ahead of time. The lyrics are so great that they are key to the listening experience. The new songs seemed to be really good, especially "Gravity's Gone," but I couldn't generally follow along too well. Oh well. They played great versions of "Goddamn Lonely Love," "Carl Perkins' Cadillac," "Marry Me," "Sinkhole," and many of their other excellent tunes. Plus they ended with Patterson Hood singing "Let There Be Rock," which is a great closing song. If I had to make any complaint, and this is extremely minor, it was a little hard to hear Patterson Hood's vocals. I don't know if this was equipment related or perhaps it is because his voice is a little thinner than Jason Isbell or Mike Cooley's. But whatever. A really top-notch show. Probably the best show I've seen in the last 9 months or so.

The one issue I want to bring up here is the terrible reputation Albuquerque has for concerts. This show was advertised big time. But the place was still probably only 60% full. People just don't come out to shows here. This is nationally known. Many artists just go to Santa Fe (where venues charge $40 or more) or they skip New Mexico altogether. For a town this big, and for the increasingly hip reputation of the town in general, the music scene is really bad. There are lots of people trying to change this. But ultimately, people have to put up the money and come out to see some live music.