A week has passed and I am just about recovered from my mini-tour with the Drive-By Truckers and Bobby Bare, Junior. Okay, I didn’t tour with them, but I did venture out three nights in a row and rocked along with them in New York City, Philadelphia and Hoboken, Thursday through Saturday night. On Sunday morning I was wiped out and was relaxing for a few minutes and listening to Boot Liquor radio through iTunes as I heard the song “7 Nights to Rock, 7 Nights to Roll”, which Bruce has covered many times but I never actually heard the original. It goes like this: “I got seven nights to rock, I got seven nights to roll, Seven nights, I’m gonna have a whirl, Seven nights with a different girl” Alright sans the part about the different girl, change seven to three and I felt like that was my song for the weekend.
On Thursday night The Truckers played Webster Hall in NYC with Bobby Bare, Jr as their opening act, who we unfortunately missed because of the early start time. We decided, (I’ll admit, it was my call) that it would be wiser to eat than to rock. So we chowed down some fantastic Po-boys at Acme on Great Jones. As we walked into Webster Hall a little after 9:00, DBT were already on stage and in the middle of their first song “Lookout Mountain”. Not 30 seconds in, a friend who came along, who never saw them before said to me, “Hey they sound like the Charlie Daniels Band” which is a comparison that no one who has spent more than a minute listening to the lyrics, would realize is completely untrue. Ever since I have been seeing the Truckers, now going on seven times or eight times I realized they are the real deal. This is not a nostalgia or a gimmick, they perform songs they want to sing about and answer to nobody but themselves. They’re not afraid to speak out about what’s wrong with our society such as our government. This is why and how their fan base has grown over the years but with a slow ease. At first glance (and listen) they do seem like some an ordinary ass-kicking Southern rock band. That is just part of the palette they use, to express in their songs that not only glorify southern folklore, deal with the plight of the working-class, but are call-outs to everyone no matter what part of the Mason-Dixon line we reside on. The night’s full set list is up at the DBT fan site Nine Bullets.
On Friday I headed down to Philadelphia to see the show again at the Theater of Living Arts. My wife, Lori came along this time for a night out and for her first Trucker’s show. We met our friends Joe and Nancy, who also traveled from Jersey, at the New Wave Cafe for a drink and we quickly headed over to Dimitri’s, which usually has long lines for a nice but speedy dinner before the show. We made it to TLA on time as Bobby and the band had just got on stage. Their set consisted of mixture of old and brand new songs from all his albums with his band the Young Criminals Starvation League, basically a rotating cast of stellar musicians. Every tour I see him on, he has a different line-up with great support artists backing him. This time around the band was Richie Kirkpatrick from Ghostfinger, Corey Younts on keyboards and Van on drums. Bobby knows how to light up on stage, he commands it the way you would imagine a seasoned rocker from Tennessee would. His recorded music may be classified as alt-country, or folk-rock but live he is unclassifiable because of the depth he extends himself and the band.
Drive-By Truckers put on another fantastic show, that was lot different from the night before, in that it was more of Jason Isabel night than a Patterson Hood one. Although each member clearly lets their personality and talent manifest on stage they respect each other and don’t try to outshine one another. These guys (and gal) just love playing and they rock hard. Although DBT didn’t completely win my wife over she enjoyed their show but felt like BBJ kicked major ass on stage. While we were in the hotel, I read a little blurb that R.E.M. had reunited Bill Berry for a benefit, the week earlier in Athens, GA. Not till I got home did I find out that Patterson Hood and Brad Morgan also performed, because they still reside in Athens. There are bunch of photos and also clips on You Tube.
On Saturday morning we had to leave Philly early to make it to Joe’s surprise party where Bobby Bare, Jr. himself was coming to make an appearance. Months ago, Nancy managed to get Bobby to play the party. She explained to his manager that the party would consist of mostly friends and family not a large group of fans. She also told him the story about how when we saw Bobby earlier in June at Maxwell’s, that we didn’t bother seeing the main act The Bottle Rockets, but hung out with the Young Criminals instead. He thought that was cool, so he asked Bobby if he’d be interested and he agreed to play a set acoustically for her. As the surprise of the party itself was still lingering, Joe was walking around talking to his guests, he never noticed that there was a little stage set up in the corner. Bobby arrived about 2 hours after the party started and Joe was stunned as Nancy and I walked him towards Joe. Although there were over hundred people at the party, the set was small and intimate, without the band. He was little hesitant to sing his songs straight through and took most of the cuss words out, because there were small children there. Before he started we told him, they wouldn’t pick up on it and most of them were running around the yard anyway. He’s a very quiet guy who doesn’t like to talk too much and the stage is his forum. He always plays barefoot, will turn down a Pabst for a Stella and will turn that down for, of course a Maker’s and Coke. For an hour he played songs from the first three YCSL albums and then sang Happy Birthday with Joe’s mom, who Like Bobby is also from Tennessee. Don’t ask for video clips because I kinda blew it and didn’t set up the camera before hand.
I left the party around 8:30 and made it down to see him again at Maxwell’s in Hoboken by 11:00. I met another friend also named Joe from the party there. The Young Criminals became Ghostfinger for the opening band, with Van and Corey making their first appearances with the band. I missed them but talked to Richie later and he said their gig went pretty well for their first time as a band together. The Films were on stage when I walked in around 11:00 and they were great. Three vocalists with the main lead singer in the middle as the other two singers chanted along with him in that updated Cars/Clash sound that is going around a lot lately. Bobby came on stage around 11:40 and played a similar set to what he played on Friday night, but to a much smaller crowd which seems to get him more excited. By 1 AM I was wiped out and was glad we didn’t have to wait 5 minutes for an encore as Bobby has a routine that I have seen him do once before, but I have never seen any other act do. Rather than walking off stage he asks the audience to pretend he has and imagine they are in the back room with with all of Nashville’s greats sipping drinks as the roar of the crowd must draw them back to the stage. Before I left I thanked Bobby for coming to Joe’s party and picked up a copy of the his CD, The Longest Meow which I have already read a couple glowing reviews. Next, I am off to see Yo La Tengo tonight in Jersey City.
Great review! That party sounds very cool…
Very nice write up. Thanks for that, and thanks for the pictures. Those are awesome. I think the day I get to meet BBJ is the day I have no other things to accomplish before I die.
Thanks for the comment Matt! If your looking for some Bobby Bare Jr. goodies, head over to Matt’s site where he has a bunch of old Bare Jr. mp3s up right now as well 2 tunes of by his band Spring Lake Locals. He has a MYSpace page devoted to Bare Jr.
[...] any exposure to their work although I was aware of their reputation. I know David is a fan and wrote about a string of their shows last fall. They’re one in a long list of bands I’ve been [...]