Drive-By Truckers bring the Southern Rock Opera Revisited Tour to the House of Blues in Chicago for a two-night engagement.
23 years since Drive-By Truckers released Southern Rock Opera, and 22 years since they last played it in its entirety, they are back doing it again. If you have tickets to catch them on this tour, make sure that you get there early. There isn’t an opening act. Instead, the entire show is devoted to their celebrated third album. Southern Rock Opera was released as a double album and so the extra time was needed to be able to cover all of it, along with some additional songs from their catalog to help bring the album into today’s political context. Patterson Hood has commented that he loves the juxtapostion of having “Surrender Under Protest” performed straight after “The Southern Thing.”
The band has recently reissued Southern Rock Opera, remixed, remastered, and resequenced. As you would expect with any reissue, you gain some extras. With this one, you get an additional song, “Mystery Song,” which they had recorded and never actually wrote down anywhere and was completely forgotten about until now. The reissue also includes some live tracks. Since this is the first time the album is available on vinyl, the order of the songs varies slightly from the original due to vinyl fidelity considerations. The deluxe edition is available as three LPs or three CDs. If you haven’t picked up your copy of the reissued version yet, fear not, as they have copies of it for sale at the merch table on this tour.
In this current climate, in the run-up to the presidential election, it’s very difficult for the topic of politics not to creep into conversations. Patterson Hood certainly did not hold back on voicing his opinion and received cheers from the audience whenever he did. The tagline for this tour is “It Ain’t About The Past,” another nod to the current political landscape we find ourselves in.
From beginning to end, the band gave their all to presenting Southern Rock Opera to an audience who were clearly letting them know how much they appreciated the performance. DBT are a road-worn American band, and to see them still full of such exuberance is an uplifting thing. Throughout the evening, Matt Patton could not keep the huge smile from his face, clearly enjoying it every bit as much as the audience. Jay Gonzalez made his presence known whenever with great solos and all-around guitar work. Having the one-two punch of both Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley fronting this band will never get old. Each brings their own magic to the songs, but seeing them perform together gives you something very special that is difficult to replicate.
It’s been a few years since Drive-By Truckers have released any new music, but that clearly didn’t put the crowds off. They managed to pack out the House of Blues in Chicago not just one night, but two. They have dates scheduled through until just before Thanksgiving with shows already having a low ticket warning or being completely sold out. This tour is not a walk down memory lane, but instead a reimagining of a popular classic.
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