Whiskey, Wednesday and Alice Cooper
By The Source Staff
Sound Check wasn't quite sure what to expect from the Midtown on this warm Wednesday night - mid-week shows are tough to gauge. It can either be a total sell-out or a night of chirping crickets, we can never quite figure it out. But a respectable crowd of seemingly die-hard Truckers fans filled up about half of the Midtown's concrete floor, creating what we'll call a "mid-sized" crowd.
Athens Georgia's Dead Confederate opened the show with a slightly psychedelic, reverb-intensive set that included a good chunk of the band's increasingly popular EP as well as some lengthy yet soaring improvisations.
When the lights went down for the Truckers' set and the scattered audience gravitated toward the stage with a standard pre-concert holler, the band's Patterson Hood was still lingering on the fringes of the crowd, bottle of beer in hand, as fans snuck in for hand shakes and utterances of star-struck phrases like, "I love your stuff, man," which were likely immediately regretted. Minutes later, Hood had transported himself on stage and was suddenly wearing a sport coat as the band launched into "Marry Me" from 2003's Decoration Day and then "That Man I Shot," a cut off DBT's recent album Brighter Than Creation's Dark, from which they would dig deeply into throughout the two-hour set. While the album is marked by a number of acoustic and classically country numbers, the songs were reinvented in true DBT style onstage - laced with ample amounts of heads-down, foot to the floor rock.
Whenever the spirit caught them, DBT members - whether it was Hood, guitarist Mike Cooley, or head-bobbing, pig-tailed bassist Shonna Tucker - swigged from a bottle of Jack Daniels with the panache that only a true Southern rocker could pull off. If the line for the bar was any indication, this swilling seemed contagious.
Later in the set, they powered through an older cut in "Shut Up and Get on the Plane," before a slowed down, Southern rockified take on Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen," which, once semi-confused fans recognized the tune, turned into a fist-pumping sing along. We're guessing the next time a Cooper tune receives such a warm reception will be when the original goth man himself performs at the fairgrounds at the end of July.
Latest in On Stage
-
Best of the Fest
Three performers not to miss at Sisters Folk Fest
- Sep 9, 2015
-
The Archetype
Nashville's John Hiatt set aside stardom and became one of America's best songwriters
- Aug 6, 2014
-
Detroit Rock Pretty
Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas make a move
- Jul 16, 2014
- More »
More by The Source Staff
-
Side Notes: Local News Roundup
Free shuttle launches in Bend, Bikeshare expands, public info on canals and more
- Jun 22, 2017
-
ONDA's 30th Anniversary, High Desert Classic & Bicycle Films
- Jun 7, 2017
-
Street Beat: What Do You Think About Leaving the Paris Climate Agreement?
Central Oregonians React
- Jun 7, 2017
- More »
