Drive-By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera Revisited Tuesday 2/4, The Jefferson Theater
Released in 2001, Drive-By Truckers’ Southern Rock Opera stands as a committed piece of Lynyrd Skynyrd fan fiction. The self-released double album that propelled the Athens, Georiga-based group to new heights on the strength of critical gushing received a second, wider release a year later, cementing the epic work’s legacy. It held up throughout this decade and garnered enough snowballing interest that the Truckers, led by founding members and vocalists Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood, are bringing it back on the road.
Part memoir reflecting on growing up in northern Alabama, part unflinching political and social commentary on the contentious ’60s, and part rock ’n’ roll biography, Southern Rock Opera begins and ends in disaster. Opening with a teenage, pre-high school graduation ceremony car crash where “Free Bird” plays to the paramedics, and closing with the untimely descent of the plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines in 1977, Skynyrd’s music is the thread that pulls the various characters together.
“Ronnie and Neil” praises the friendship between the Skynyrd vocalist and Neil Young, despite the lingering shadow cast by a long-settled beef. “Dead, Drunk and Naked” plays off the “Sweet Home Alabama” riff’s rhythm to tell a warped tale of rehabilitation.
Musically, the songs are built on the same-sounding DNA of the band whose story they’re telling—just as they tell their own tales; even on a track like “Let There Be Rock,” which laments missing Skynyrd in concert but reminisces about seeing shows by Blue Öyster Cult, Ozzy Osbourne, Molly Hatchet, 38 Special, and AC/DC (who are responsible for the borrowed song title), the shuffle of the chords still gives the impression of an obscure Skynyrd cover.
Parts of the fan fiction are more on the nose, specifically on the record’s last five songs. “Shut Up and Get on the Plane” recalls the bad feelings present before taking that tragic flight—logical considering the previous day’s engine fire. “Greenville to Baton Rouge” concerns a touring band’s ever-present need to make up time on the road (or in this case, the sky) before “Angels and Fuselage” flashes back to Van Zant’s memories as the aircraft loses altitude.
Objectively, playing this through should all be more of a bummer considering the subject matter, but the Truckers manage to take the tragic to a place some sick bastards might call fun. I guess I mean me—I’d call it fun.
And that revel should easily translate live. Though they’re tempering audience expectations by stating they’ll be performing “almost all of the album in its entirety” (offset with some other complementary songs from their extensive catalog dating back to 1998), the setlist is poised to deliver the drama expected by anyone who’s given multiple listens to their masterpiece.
