Protest music can take on many guises. Thursday at a packed Vic, the Drive-By Truckers made it sound defiant, imperative and necessary. The band posed as many questions as it answered and, rather than point fingers or proselytize, used its passionate 125-minute concert as a boots-on-the-ground report on social issues and caught-in-the-margins people experiencing them. Unapologetic and unbowed, the veteran ensemble turned rock ‘n’ roll into a potent tool designed to challenge and resist.
Sense of purpose is nothing new to the Truckers. More than two decades into a career witness to several acclaimed albums, they offer old-school constancy and substance in an era that often rewards change and trendiness. The quintet’s two mainstays, songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, traditionally gravitate toward topical real-world fare. This has never been more so than on the recent “American Band,” an album united by observations about fear and mistrust.
MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR
More Top Picks Cat Tree
Apprehension consumed the thoughts of Hood and Cooley, who alternated lead vocals. “Guns of Umpqua” unfolded as a eulogy delivered by a man about to die, Hood’s sighs relaying the ruminations of a military veteran trapped in a violent massacre. Performed amid blood-red stage lighting, “Lookout Mountain” rained distortion as its protagonist contemplated what would happen after he committed suicide. Preceded by a story about the killing of an African-American boy in 1995, “What It Means” confronted ongoing prejudice and inequity with goose bump-raising poignancy — the song’s import not lost on this city.
Yet instead of allowing darkness and divisiveness to gain the upper hand, the Truckers found reasons to fight and push back. With clanging guitars threatening to shake dust from the rafters, and booming drums evoking an overhead thunderstorm, they kept returning to an unspoken theme: living, and trying to do so righteously. For all the injustice and desperation chronicled in the narratives, the group roared back with messages and menace that eliminated surrender from the realm of possibility.
The hillbilly rage of “Sink Hole” first functioned as a warning before serving as a moral lesson about the consequences of bank authorities overstepping their bounds. Delivering a shot to conventional power structures, the shuffling “Filthy and Fried” placed girls on equal footing with boys. Slouching to a greasy groove suggestive of shady backroom business deals, “Kinky Hypocrite” sent up sanctimonious leaders.
Smartly, the Truckers also sneaked verses from Prince’s topical “Sign ‘O’ the Times” into a seething “Hell No, I Ain’t Happy” and closed with Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” Neither cover was a celebration. Like the show itself, they signified calls to action.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
Twitter @chitribent
RELATED STORIES:
Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood calls himself ‘cynical pragmatic optimist’
Alejandro Escovedo brings energy, rawness to City Winery set
Review: Tedeschi Trucks, above all, honors the music
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Entertainment Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 20px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_ent_movie_trailers’,
layout = ‘autoblurb’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent’;
Watch the latest movie trailers.