Drive-By Truckers 12.31.05

Experience tells me morning will arrive quickly following a Drive-By Truckers' performance
and copious amounts of aspirin, coffee and spearmint gum can rebuild brain cells. DBT's New
Year's Eve show at the Fox Theatre was no exception.

A little past 11 p.m. I made my way down close to the stage and a little right of center.
By the opening notes of "Lookout Mountain," I felt like a canned sardine, except I was
preserved in Jack Daniels. The sound quality was great and I settled into the beat. The
crowd close in sang right along with most every tune except for a few new songs. There was
a great mix of ages in the crowd and I felt good to not be the oldest.

Patterson's smiling, fun stricken face lit the stage as the tunes evolved. In addition to
the standard lineup John Neff was playing steel and a fiddler came in. Every so often Jason
Isbell would switch to keyboards. These details resulted in a verbatim performance of their
recorded CD's.
 
Except for a short break at midnight the Truckers played straight through to the 2 a.m.
curfew. Expect a new CD from these guys this March or April. If my intuition is true there's
a musical twist in this new release.

Review by Jay Niemoth, 1.3.2006