Jason Isbell dug into the vaults to pull out a special 2014 concert alongside his former Drive-By Truckers bandmates Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley on Friday. The concert, which took place at the Shoals Theatre in Florence, AL on June 15th, 2014, is available now on Bandcamp.
The show came together as a benefit concert for Terry Pace, a fixture in the local Shoals artistic scene. Pace—an actor, director, producer, lecturer and music historian—suffered a pair of “debilitating” strokes in March of that year, and faced a long and expensive road to recovery. Together these former bandmates, who hadn’t shared the stage in years, came together to perform in-the-round on this special evening.
The setlist for the evening saw a vibrant mix of the DBT songbook alongside some choice covers including a selection from Isbell’s then-budding solo career. Starting off the show with “Tornadoes” from Drive-By-Truckers’ 2004 record The Dirty South, the trio explored the band’s output during Isbell’s tenure of 2001—2007. Given Isbell’s seemingly-sudden departure from the group seven years prior, which in no small part led to the lasting sobriety he enjoys to this day, this concert served as an important statement to fans that there were no hard feelings.
Over the course of the 25-song performance, the trio mined much of The Dirty South as well as 2003’s Decoration Day. It was toward the end of the evening, however, that Isbell showed everyone what he had been up to with a take on his solo single “Cover Me Up”. In the end, the show came to a raucous close with Hood’s epic for all the classic rock bands he saw growing up, “Let There Be Rock”. Not to be confused with the AC/DC song, though the Hood original does reference the Aussie rockers.
Live at Shoals Theatre from Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, and Mike Cooley is available to purchase on Bandcamp. Listen to the trio’s take on “Tornadoes” below.
Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley – “Tornadoes” – Florence, AL – 6/15/14