Drive-By Truckers: Get on the plane ... anyone?

[Guest blogger August Brown is ready for some pizza deliverance.]

Drive-By Truckers represent everything right about the impulse but bad about the execution behind Stagecoach's mix of alternative and mainstream country. The band is closest thing we have to a modern-day Skynyrd (they wrote a double album, "Southern Rock Opera" about them, after all), and their filthy, witty roughneck tunes should have destroyed the Palomino Stage, even if they were competing with the former Mr. Zellweger on the Mane Stage (and more on him in a bit).

But like Neko Case last night, the Truckers had the dubious honor of being having the most skewed talent-to-audience ratio of the day. We're all about hyperbole here, but there honestly could not have been more than 200 people watching their set. And that is just unacceptable for such a relentlessly awesome rock group that by all rights should have packed the place. The only conclusion is that Stagecoach needs to de-ghettoize the alt-country groups from the Palomino Stage and have more back-and forth across the field between mainstream and underground groups.

But given the attendance atrocity, the Truckers kept their chins up and delivered as best they could. "Shut Up and Get On The Plane" was a worthy travellin' song that swung like a sackful of bricks, and the laid-bare fears on closer "Angels and Fuselage" withstood the boozy affirmations of a dude screaming "Truckers!" after every line, even if he drove guitarist Mike Cooley to gulp from a handle of Jack Daniel's onstage.

I'd like to think that Stagecoach can accommodate bands like the Truckers and win them a new audience of mainstream country fans. But until Stagecoach figures out how to introduce the two, the bad habit of a great band being criminally ignored by a whole festival will probably continue. And that's a shame.