A double dose of Southern Rock n Roll in store tonight with the emphasis on rock. We enter the venue to a wall of noise from Heartless Bastards hailing for Texas. Led by a feisty female singer who’s a wash of long blonde hair they belt out a steady stream of good ol' fashioned down and dirty rock tunes. Augers well ...for the main act.
The Truckers heavily plugging their new album (a bit of a grower) start slowly. The sound is all over the place with Mike Cooley’s vocals so far down in the mix that only the rats in the basement can hear him. It’s not much better for his guitar when on one early solo you can barely hear it over the rhythm section. It’s not until song five Carl Perkins Cadillac that the sound man has finally found the right knob to turn and button to press and the next hour is a riveting rattle through oldies and newbies. Patterson Hood sounding better with each swig of Jack and sharing the licks with Colley alternately on each song.
Up in the seats is one of the long list of DBT alumni Jason Isbell with his beautiful wife Amanda Shires (she’s also a pretty good musician and singer too) but despite some early encouragement from her to get his ass downstairs he doesn’t. It’s a shame as the band lost one of their best songwriters when he left and they just lack that edge they once had. Hood dedicates Let there be Rock to Isbell which while not the ACDC version has all of the balls out rock quality of the Aussies. Crowd now really into it with a couple more left, set closes and the ringing in the ears is not abating even when home.
All in all a good evening spoilt a little by a slow start and some early muddy sound but you are left wondering if the best is perhaps behind them.