The Drive-By Truckers have released a lot of excellent records, but their 2001 concept album Southern Rock Opera, which deals with the politics of their home state of Alabama, the legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd, life on the road, and more, might be their best. It holds a special place in the hearts of the band and their fans, enough to justify the Southern Rock Opera Revisited Tour, which recently rolled into the Warner Theatre in DC.

At Warner Theatre on Oct. 16, the show started straightforwardly enough, with the band playing the first several tracks from Southern Rock Opera: “Days of Graduation”; “Ronnie and Neil,” about the relationship between Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zandt and Neil Young (they admired and respected one another); “72 (This Highway’s Mean)”; “Dead, Drunk, and Naked”; “Guitar Man Upstairs”; and “Birmingham.”

The first left turn of the night came after “Birmingham” with the more recent Mike Cooley composition “Ramon Casiano,” about the teenage Casiano’s murder in 1931 in Laredo, Texas, by Harlon Carter. In the ’70s, Carter became the head of the lobbying division of the NRA, and he pushed the organization toward advocacy for unrestricted gun rights. Cooley’s song places the contemporary gun rights movement in the context of racialized violence that’s always been there.

After “Ramon Casiano,” the Truckers returned to SRO with “Three Alabama Icons,” a spoken word piece that references Ronnie Van Zandt, University of Alabama football coach Bear Bryant, and longtime governor George Wallace, who was infamous for his arch-segregationist positions. Patterson Hood deviated from the song’s original lyrics, talking about how, sadly, it’s became relevant again once more after he thought people like George Wallace were relics who had died off. He mentioned the scene in The Blues Brothers where Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi’s characters drive their at an Illinois Nazi Party march, forcing the Nazis to jump off a bridge and intro a river. “We all laughed” in 1980, he said. “It was funny.” But now, all these years later, “we’re at war” with racists, Patterson said.

On the album, “Three Alabama Icons” precedes “The Southern Thing.” As Hood explained, this is a song that the band had largely retired, only playing on special occasions, like their Heathens Homecoming shows in Athens, Georgia. When they played this song live, the reaction disturbed them: “People pulled out their loser flags,” Hood said, referring to the Confederate flag. Fittingly, the Truckers followed this song with the call to arms of “Surrender Under Protest.”

Watch the official music video for “Surrender Under Protest” by Drive-by Truckers on YouTube:

Patterson told the audience: “Wallace” was written on the day the man was buried in 1998, and it tells of how the Devil is ready to receive him in Hell. The show moved away from the SRO material for Cooley’s “Made Up English Oceans,” then came back to it with “Plastic Flowers on the Highway,” which Hood wrote after the death of a friend in a car accident. “One of the themes of this record,” he said, “is dying on the road.”

The set continued with “Primer Coat,” then the more recent Hood composition, “The New OK.” After Cooley’s “Zip City,” Hood spoke about how, in 2002, they met a character he referred to as The Mighty Matador, who would play with the band for 14 years, and who now manages the Warner Theatre! This was followed by “Let There Be Rock,” then the more recent “Every Single Storied Flameout.”

Introducing “Road Cases,” Patterson talked about looking for a guitar in Atlanta after he moved to Athens in 1994. At every music store, there was at least one piece of equipment with the initials ARS, for Atlanta Rhythm Section. A successful band in the ’70s, MTV spelled the end for them, because “Guys who looked like Paul Goddard didn’t get on MTV, no matter how well they played.” 

Next up was “Women Without Whiskey,” then “Life In The Factory,” which Hood called “a punk rock song about a southern rock band.” Then it was time for the last few tracks from SRO: “Shut Up and Get On the Plane,” “Greenville to Baton Rouge,” and “Angels & Fuselage.” Introducing the last of these, Hood said, “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not someone who gives up easily.” The message of the song, he said, is “fuck fear,” which he blamed for the popularity of Donald Trump.

Stream the 2024 deluxe edition of Southern Rock Opera by Drive-By Truckers on Spotify:

To close the show, the Truckers played a couple of cover tunes, southern rock band Wet Willie’s “Keep on Smilin'” and Neil Young’s anthemic “Rockin’ in the Free World.” It was a fitting way to end the evening, politically charged and cutting.

This was the best Drive-By Truckers show I’ve seen. The sound quality, which has been an issue in the past, was excellent. As loud as they played, it was always clear exactly what the song was, which hasn’t always been the case at DBT shows. And that’s a shame, because their songs are incredible. It also helped that they played without an opener, and they started shortly after eight o’clock. In the past, I’ve had to leave their shows early to catch the train home, but, on Wednesday night, they finished at a quarter to eleven, leaving plenty of time for my commute back to Arlington.

The tagline for the Southern Rock Opera tour said, “It ain’t about the past.” And while DBT may have been playing songs that came out more than 20 years ago, they emphasized their continuing relevance and spoke to today’s issues and concerns, showing how they’re one of the most important bands playing today.

Here are some photos of Drive-By Truckers performing at the Warner Theatre on Oct. 16, 2024. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Marc Shea.