At the Rock Show

I'm up against the railing. I've heard about the railing. This is where the elitist fans go to prove that they're the best. I'm not here to prove anything, except my unbridled desire to see this band live. I've been into the Drive-By Truckers for seven months. I listen to them daily. I have a tattoo celebrating the band. I flew to Atlanta to see them perform the final show on their tour. (Among other things; I'm also here to see my buddy Joe, and to go to Six Flags Over Georgia to see if the Great American Scream Machine is as fantastic as it has been in my dreams.) It's rare when I fall in love with a band this fast and this hard. I'm pumped. I'm ready. And when they take the stage, I'm blown away.

A quick flashback: like I said, I've only been into them for seven months. But you know how it goes. I had one of their songs - "Birthday Boy," a newer one - on a mix for a year. Listened to it constantly. Never had any interest in going deeper. Then one day I bought their greatest hits album and something inside me broke open. I hate being a writer and saying "I can't describe it," because I can describe it; it's just one of those times when words diminish an experience we all understand innately. It's like the music has been there all the time, somewhere in your heart and brain and soul, waiting to be excavated and brought to the surface. There's no "getting into it" because you're already there. In "Tangled Up In Blue," Bob Dylan says, "and every one of them words rang true, and glowed like burning coal / pouring off of every page like it was written on my soul." I think that's the perfect way to describe new music you've been waiting for all your life.

I added piece by piece, putting the Drive-By Truckers together the way you do now for a band who's been around for awhile and you're gulping but trying to sip. I downloaded tracks from every album, the ones the rock critics thought were their best. Listened to those, figured out which ones I liked and which ones I didn't. There weren't many I didn't. From there, full albums - again, the one the rock critics said were the essentials. Now, look. Rock critics don't know everything and I know that. But they know something. The better ones are able, at least, to give generalities; if you're someone who likes rock music, you begin to pick up on these generalities. You begin to recognize comparisons, analogies. If you enjoy x, you'll probably like z. My initial reactions are almost always mine alone; I need critics to get me into that crucial next step - the what next, past the line dilettantes cross into the world of fandom.

I wrote a whole lot more about the structure of the band, but mostly what you need to know is that Mike Cooley is the band's co-lead - he sang "Birthday Boy" and many of my favorite DBT songs, and is who the band's mascot, the Cooley Bird, is named for - and I'm not into him physically. Patterson Hood, on the other hand, is the band's ostensible frontman, sings a lot of the band's biggest songs, is responsible for the line of lyric tattooed on my arm - "it's great to be alive" - and is ball-smashingly sexy. When he sings, he does this thing with his tongue that is unbelievably erotic, like he's about to lisp but then the sibilance is just fine. I want to point out that I knew very little of this going in. I had an idea of what Patterson looked like - bigger dude, longish hair, thinnish beard - but nothing about how intense he would seem in person, or how that tongue thing would make me feel.

This is not to diminish the band; I think this type of thing enhances who they are and what they do. There's something inherently erotic about concerts, the communion between singer and listener. At its base, it's taking out and putting in. If you're committed, if you listen, if you give yourself up to the experience, it can change you. It can reset your receptors. It alters your world view, and in that way it might actually be better than sex. It's all the best parts with none of the drawbacks. It's unadulterated lust and need and release.

Earlier that day, Joe had taken me to music shop in downtown Atlanta called Criminal Records. It was Record Store Day and I wanted to pick up the new Springsteen 45. (Yes. The new Springsteen 45. It's called "Rocky Ground" and it's from the new album and I still have a turntable. There's a picture sleeve and everything!) Maybe more importantly is that Patterson was playing an acoustic set at the back of the store, and I wanted the preshow experience. What I got was something surreal: megafans crowding the tiny stage at the back of the store, talking to each other, conferring about what concerts (no, strike that; they called them rock shows. "You been goin' to too many rock shows, girl. You're gonna go broke!") they'd seen this year and which they'd missed. Record store patrons who couldn't have cared less about the band. And the band themselves (which was essentially a diminished version of Drive-By Truckers, with Patterson and the drummer and the piano player and the bassist) setting up their own amps.

That image struck me. Later that night, the full band would play a huge rock venue called The Tabernacle to thousands of screaming fans. They've had records on the charts. They're hugely respected by critics. And they're setting up their own amps.

The acoustic show was pretty good, too. Patterson mainly played some solo stuff I either didn't know or only knew a little (there's a song called "Uncle Disney" I was prepared to not like and ended up loving), and by request, a song called "18 Wheels of Love." On their first live album, Alabama Ass Whuppin', Patterson introduced a long story to open the song, about his mother and the trucker she fell in love with.

"Y'all want the story or the song?" The crowd shouted back, "Both!" So we got both, and I knew most of the words, and he did that thing with his tongue and I wanted to melt. The ladies in front of me did, too.

When he finished, I kind of panicked, wanting to approach him about an autograph but not wanting to be, you know, that guy, even though he was there to give his signature away to a dozen that guys (and that girls, sans diamonds, daisies, and snowflakes). Instead, I turned around and saw by buddy Joe standing in the middle of the store, that inscrutable smile on his face.

"Did you ... did you like it?" I was absolutely certain Joe had hated it. I think of him as Depeche Mode, Abney Park, funky electronica type stuff. And Supertramp.

"I really did," he told me, specifically mentioning "Uncle Disney" as one he particularly enjoyed. Joe, apparently, contains multitudes. It was then when we first started discussing the possibility of him joining me at the concert ... though I was pretty sure the thing was going to be sold out already. I grabbed my ticket over a month before, because I'm not a fan of doubt.

Joe and I spent an afternoon in Downtown Atlanta. There was a UFC thing happening at one of the bigger venues in town, which meant that while killing time waiting for my show to start, we had plenty of eye candy. UFC fans tend to look like UFC fighters: big and muscular and tattooed. I ate Wendy's and feasted on the scenery.

As the sun began its dip, Joe and I approached the ticket window at the Tabernacle. I was so worried; this was something I hadn't really considered before. If Joe couldn't get a ticket, I'd go into the rock show and he'd ... just sort of tool around Atlanta for a few hours?

The gods were shining on us, though, and it's moments like this when I have to realize I'm not dealing with Springsteen numbers. Joe snagged his ticket easily, and when the doors opened, he got right in.

More preconceptions shattered: the show was General Admission, and as I'd been bred to expect from my time following Springsteen around the Midwest, when you get in, you run to the stage, and you stay there, and you don't leave. I hurried into the concert hall ... and it was empty. Completely empty. "What?"

"There are seats up in the balcony," Joe said. "I know you want to be close to the stage, but I do believe I'm going to sit."

I nodded, astounded. Even at Blue October, the spot up near the stage had been jam-packed. Here was a huge old theater, decorated walls stretching up high, higher, highest, a wide-open concert floor ... and literally no one was here. When you see an advantage, take it: I dashed into the lower area where the merch was and procured myself a band shirt for a fraction of what my Springsteen shirt was. I guess that's the advantage of loving bands with different statures; sometimes you get cheap T-shirts, and sometimes you get to stand right up front at the rock show.

* * *

I'm at the railing.

I'm not the only one anymore. I've made concert-buddies with a short young lady who has seen the band dozens of times, and with two fellows, brothers-in-law, who haven't seen the band at all yet. They appreciate my tattoo (based on the Wes Freed art from almost all their album covers), but no one's feeding my vanity like that one time at the Barenaked Ladies show when that woman recognized me from online by my band ink. It's cool. Mostly.

The opening band, Megafaun, takes the stage. Some of them had been at Criminal Records with Patterson earlier that day and I confirm again that a few of them are pretty damn foxy. I like some of their music, too, but they go the jam band route a few times too many for my taste.

The stage clears. We wait. It goes dark. We cheer. Drive-By Truckers take the stage. We scream.

I'm up against the railing. I've heard about the railing. This is where the elitist fans go to prove that they're the best. I'm not here to prove anything, except my unbridled desire to see this band live. I've been into the Drive-By Truckers for seven months. I listen to them daily. I have a tattoo celebrating the band. I flew to Atlanta to see them perform the final show on their tour. (Among other things; I'm also here to see my buddy Joe, and to go to Six Flags Over Georgia to see if the Great American Scream Machine is as fantastic as it has been in my dreams.) It's rare when I fall in love with a band this fast and this hard. I'm pumped. I'm ready. And when they take the stage, I'm blown away.

Flashback: like I said, I've only been into them for seven months. But you know how it goes. I had one of their songs - "Birthday Boy," a newer one - on a mix for a year. Listened to it constantly. Never had any interest in going deeper. Then one day I bought their greatest hits album and something inside me broke open. I hate being a writer and saying "I can't describe it," because I can describe it; it's just one of those times when words diminish an experience we all understand innately. It's like the music has been there all the time, somewhere in your heart and brain and soul, waiting to be excavated and brought to the surface. There's no "getting into it" because you're already there. In "Tangled Up In Blue," Bob Dylan says, "and every one of them words rang true, and glowed like burning coal / pouring off of every page like it was written on my soul." I think that's the perfect way to describe new music you've been waiting for all your life.

I added piece by piece, putting the Drive-By Truckers together the way you do now for a band who's been around for awhile and you're gulping but trying to sip. I downloaded tracks from every album, the ones the rock critics thought were their best. Listened to those, figured out which ones I liked and which ones I didn't. There weren't many I didn't. From there, full albums - again, the one the rock critics said were the essentials. Now, look. Rock critics don't know everything and I know that. But they know something. The better ones are able, at least, to give generalities; if you're someone who likes rock music, you begin to pick up on these generalities. You begin to recognize comparisons, analogies. If you enjoy x, you'll probably like z. My initial reactions are almost always mine alone; I need critics to get me into that crucial next step - the what next, past the line dilettantes cross into the world of fandom.

I wrote a whole lot more about the structure of the band, but mostly what you need to know is that Mike Cooley is the band's co-lead - he sang "Birthday Boy" and many of my favorite DBT songs, and is who the band's mascot, the Cooley Bird, is named for - and I'm not into him physically. Patterson Hood, on the other hand, is the band's ostensible frontman, sings a lot of the band's biggest songs, is responsible for the line of lyric tattooed on my arm - "it's great to be alive" - and is ball-smashingly sexy. When he sings, he does this thing with his tongue that is unbelievably erotic, like he's about to lisp but then the sibilance is just fine. I want to point out that I knew very little of this going in. I had an idea of what Patterson looked like - bigger dude, longish hair, thinnish beard - but nothing about how intense he would seem in person, or how that tongue thing would make me feel.

This is not to diminish the band; I think this type of thing enhances who they are and what they do. There's something inherently erotic about concerts, the communion between singer and listener. At its base, it's taking out and putting in. If you're committed, if you listen, if you give yourself up to the experience, it can change you. It can reset your receptors. It alters your world view, and in that way it might actually be better than sex. It's all the best parts with none of the drawbacks. It's unadulterated lust and need and release.

Earlier that day, Joe had taken me to music shop in downtown Atlanta called Criminal Records. It was Record Store Day and I wanted to pick up the new Springsteen 45. (Yes. The new Springsteen 45. It's called "Rocky Ground" and it's from the new album and I still have a turntable. There's a picture sleeve and everything!) Maybe more importantly is that Patterson was playing an acoustic set at the back of the store, and I wanted the preshow experience. What I got was something surreal: megafans crowding the tiny stage at the back of the store, talking to each other, conferring about what concerts (no, strike that; they called them rock shows. "You been goin' to too many rock shows, girl. You're gonna go broke!") they'd seen this year and which they'd missed. Record store patrons who couldn't have cared less about the band. And the band themselves (which was essentially a diminished version of Drive-By Truckers, with Patterson and the drummer and the piano player and the bassist) setting up their own amps.

That image struck me. Later that night, the full band would play a huge rock venue called The Tabernacle to thousands of screaming fans. They've had records on the charts. They're hugely respected by critics. And they're setting up their own amps.

The acoustic show was pretty good, too. Patterson mainly played some solo stuff I either didn't know or only knew a little (there's a song called "Uncle Disney" I was prepared to not like and ended up loving), and by request, a song called "18 Wheels of Love." On their first live album, Alabama Ass Whuppin', Patterson introduced a long story to open the song, about his mother and the trucker she fell in love with.

"Y'all want the story or the song?" The crowd shouted back, "Both!" So we got both, and I knew most of the words, and he did that thing with his tongue and I wanted to melt. The ladies in front of me did, too.

When he finished, I kind of panicked, wanting to approach him about an autograph but not wanting to be, you know, that guy, even though he was there to give his signature away to a dozen that guys (and that girls, sans diamonds, daisies, and snowflakes). Instead, I turned around and saw by buddy Joe standing in the middle of the store, that inscrutable smile on his face.

"Did you ... did you like it?" I was absolutely certain Joe had hated it. I think of him as Depeche Mode, Abney Park, funky electronica type stuff. And Supertramp.

"I really did," he told me, specifically mentioning "Uncle Disney" as one he particularly enjoyed. Joe, apparently, contains multitudes. It was then when we first started discussing the possibility of him joining me at the concert ... though I was pretty sure the thing was going to be sold out already. I grabbed my ticket over a month before, because I'm not a fan of doubt.

Joe and I spent an afternoon in Downtown Atlanta. There was a UFC thing happening at one of the bigger venues in town, which meant that while killing time waiting for my show to start, we had plenty of eye candy. UFC fans tend to look like UFC fighters: big and muscular and tattooed. I ate Wendy's and feasted on the scenery.

As the sun began its dip, Joe and I approached the ticket window at the Tabernacle. I was so worried; this was something I hadn't really considered before. If Joe couldn't get a ticket, I'd go into the rock show and he'd ... just sort of tool around Atlanta for a few hours?

The gods were shining on us, though, and it's moments like this when I have to realize I'm not dealing with Springsteen numbers. Joe snagged his ticket easily, and when the doors opened, he got right in.

More preconceptions shattered: the show was General Admission, and as I'd been bred to expect from my time following Springsteen around the Midwest, when you get in, you run to the stage, and you stay there, and you don't leave. I hurried into the concert hall ... and it was empty. Completely empty. "What?"

"There are seats up in the balcony," Joe said. "I know you want to be close to the stage, but I do believe I'm going to sit."

I nodded, astounded. Even at Blue October, the spot up near the stage had been jam-packed. Here was a huge old theater, decorated walls stretching up high, higher, highest, a wide-open concert floor ... and literally no one was here. When you see an advantage, take it: I dashed into the lower area where the merch was and procured myself a band shirt for a fraction of what my Springsteen shirt was. I guess that's the advantage of loving bands with different statures; sometimes you get cheap T-shirts, and sometimes you get to stand right up front at the rock show.

* * *

I'm at the railing.

I'm not the only one anymore. I've made concert-buddies with a short young lady who has seen the band dozens of times, and with two fellows, brothers-in-law, who haven't seen the band at all yet. They appreciate my tattoo (based on the Wes Freed art from almost all their album covers), but no one's feeding my vanity like that one time at the Barenaked Ladies show when that woman recognized me from online by my band ink. It's cool. Mostly.

The opening band, Megafaun, takes the stage. Some of them had been at Criminal Records with Patterson earlier that day and I confirm again that a few of them are pretty damn foxy. I like some of their music, too, but they go the jam band route a few times too many for my taste.

The stage clears. We wait. It goes dark. We cheer. Drive-By Truckers take the stage. We scream.

It's too much, all at once. I have my inhaler in case my asthma tries to ruin my night, and I use it almost at once. The band starts off with "The Buford Stick," immediately fulfilling my hope that they'd do at least some songs I don't know well. You want a mix, usually: songs you know by heart and songs you don't know at all and songs you've heard once or twice and want to hear in a new context, so you can take the memory home and put it back on the record and see if it's as good as it was at the rock show. It so rarely is, but you can hope. You can always hope.

The floor had filled up and now we are crushed against the railing. I am okay with that. Early in the set, Patterson looks down and meets my eyes and he gives me a thumbs-up. I give it back. Maybe he recognized me from the show earlier. Maybe he saw my DBT tattoo. Maybe, like a lot of people, he saw my thumbs-up tattoo and shot me one back in response. It doesn't matter, because that's my moment. I can take that with me. I can keep it.

Second song in, Cooley steps up and launches into "Where the Devil Don't Stay," one of my new favorites. It's about Prohibition, of all things, but he makes it feel current and menacing and dark. And Southern; intensely Southern. That's one of the major attractions of this band. They're inviting me into a world I don't belong to and am struggling to understand. They don't like being called Southern rock, and maybe that's because it's a dismissive label - a judgment rather than a classification. They're rock and roll, and a lot of their music is about the South: the stories, the history, the right-here-and-now.

And that's when they bring out "The Southern Thing." Those first three notes: BAM-BAM-BAAAM, and the black wall covering behind the band flies away, revealing a giant Wes Freed mural. There's the Cooley Bird, towering over us. And there's Patterson, pissed off and spitting lyrics about the duality of the Southern thing. When he sings, "you think I'm dumb / maybe not too bright," that's when I lose it. Completely, unequivocally lose it. When I hear that line up North, it brings tears to my eyes. When I hear it here, I get the righteous fury in it. I feel it. I'm a Boston Yankee singing along about the Southern thing, and it doesn't seem strange or off-kilter to me.

They trade off, Cooley and Patterson, for the rest of the night. "The Living Bubba," "Women Without Whiskey," "Three Dimes Down," more. I'm lost in it. I'm caught in it. After the short encore, they bring Megafaun back on stage and trade off verses to The Band's "The Weight," honoring Levon Helm, who had died days before. I knew they'd been doing tributes, and while I hoped for my favorite Band song, "When I Paint My Masterpiece," this was perfect. Everything was perfect.

What you need to know that I was fully in it from the go, transported the second Patterson first opened his mouth and they started playing. But then came "Let There Be Rock," and something important inside me broke. I screamed along loud enough to hurt, and inside all I could think was this is it. I need to follow them. I need to only come to Drive-By Truckers shows from now on. This is my new existence. I never want this feeling to end.

But it does, of course. It comes down. But not before doing the massive one-two finale of Cooley's "Shut Up and Get On the Plane," and Patterson's "Angels and Fuselage." That last is controlled hysteria. The song is dark. It’s a plane crash and the mood should be somber, the mood should be devastating.

and I’m scared shitless of what’s coming next

And I’m scared shitless

These angels I see in the trees

Waitin for me

It’s haunting, but not just. It’s catharsis. Release. Patterson drags his guitar strings against the mic stand and thrusts against it; music as sex, music as lust. It descends into glorious noise, as one by one the band leaves the stage, Patterson's guitar by the amp and spitting out feedback. Then even that's gone, and the house lights are up, and all I'm left with is the ringing in my ears.

I want nothing more than for it not to be over. I want another hour of this, or two, or seven. But the house lights are up and I realize that I'm exhausted, completely wrung out by what I've seen and what's happened to me. With me. For me.

There are moments that change your perceptions, that shift everything inside you while you're inside them and then leave you a different person when they're done. They're hard to find, difficult to duplicate, and impossible to sustain. From here on, a part of me will always be at that rock show. Turned on. Elevated. Transcendent. You can leave the rock show, but the rock show never leaves you.