Recap: Patterson Hood (Drive By Truckers) at Lark Hall 12/2/2022 -By: Steven Stock

Patterson Hood ambled onstage with just an acoustic guitar and a glass of tequila – pretty much everything he needed to entertain a modest but appreciative assemblage 

that half-filled Lark Hall last Friday. “I’m gonna digress a lot, I gotta tell you,” he warned us with a sly grin, his drawl betraying Alabama roots (Hood’s father David was bassist for the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, aka The Swampers) even though he’s lived in Portland, Oregon for years now.

Without any further ado Hood launched into a generous set comprised of twenty songs and one hilarious story, most of them drawn from his formidable catalog with the Drive-By Truckers: fourteen studio albums and a slew of live affairs since 1996. Although Drive-By Truckers have endured many lineup changes, they often feature three guitars a la Lynyrd Skynyrd, and their performances at The Egg and at SPAC in recent years have posed a real challenge to the sound engineers behind the mixing desk.

Thus it was a pleasure to hear Hood’s stripped-down arrangements and savor his storytelling abilities, with every note ringing clearly through Lark Hall. Hood isn’t particularly showy as a guitarist – it’s unlikely that Richard Thompson would lose any sleep after seeing him – but he does do a great job matching his riffs to his lyrics, from the delicate picking of opener “Monument Valley” to the forceful strum und drang of “We Will Never Wake You In The Morning.” Even in a solo performance he’s a master of dynamics, needing just a single guitar to execute the Pixies’ trademark loud/soft/loud routine.

He’s quite an expressive singer as well, taking liberties such as elongating the word “cards” into three or four syllables on a lovely rendition of “21st Century USA.” Hood was clearly enjoying himself during “Heathen,” and his smiles and good cheer were infectious. 

Although many of his songs are set in a working-class America disproportionately filled with ne’er-do-wells, drunkards and addicts, Hood’s message is ultimately life-affirming, his work spiritually closer to Mark Twain than Raymond Carver. When is a friend getting shot funny? When the friend manages to somehow get shot going fishing! And you have to love a guy who writes a ballad called “The Night G.G. Allin Came To Town.”

It wasn’t a perfect set by any means: Hood flubbed a couple of lines during “The Fourth Night Of My Drinking,” and after 19 songs on acoustic guitar I was longing for a piano or even an electric interlude. Instead, as an encore, Hood essayed a story (albeit with intermittent guitar backing) that I’ll guess is called “The Kindergarten Disease.”

Freakin’ hilarious!

Hood finished with a song that he’s not quite satisfied with, “A World Of Hurt.” With an opening couplet that reads:

Once upon a time my advice might’ve been

To go out and get yourself a whore

“A World Of Hurt” was a powerful ending to a compelling performance. Lark Hall’s recent bookings include Bob Mould, Yo La Tengo and now Hood, so the mid-size venue seems poised to fill a niche on the Albany concert scene that’s been mostly vacant since the demise of Valentine’s.

Set List

“Monument Valley”

“Grand Canyon”

“Uncle Disney”

“The Ballad Of Cecil McCobb”

“21st Century USA”

“The Fourth Night Of My Drinking”

“Heat Lightning”

“Heathen”

“Pauline Hawkins”

“Leaving Time”

“We Will Never Wake You Up In The Morning”

“Billy Ringo In The Dark”

“The Righteous Path”

“Daddy Needs A Drink”

“Shake And Pine”

“Bulldozers And Dirt”

“Mercy Buckets”

“The Night G.G. Allin Came To Town”

“The Driver”

Story: The Kindergarten Disease

“A World Of Hurt”