Drive-By Truckers – Live @ Plan 9 (3-LP Blue Swirl Vinyl)
Before Southern Rock Opera made them famous, Drive-By Truckers were an incendiary live band building their reputation one sweaty club show at a time. Live @ Plan 9 captures the band in 2000 at the legendary Richmond, Virginia record store, playing with the desperation of artists who know they're onto something but haven't quite broken through. This Cyber Monday exclusive blue swirl triple vinyl preserves a moment when DBT's future was uncertain but their power was undeniable.
The pre-Jason Isbell lineup—Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Rob Malone, Brad Morgan, Earl Hicks, and John Neff—tears through early material with the intensity of a band that's been touring relentlessly and has nothing to lose. The three-LP format captures the full arc of a DBT show: the slow builds, the guitar army crescendos, Hood's between-song stories about Southern ghosts, and Cooley's bone-dry wit. Plan 9's intimate setting puts you in the room with maybe a hundred other believers.
For fans who discovered DBT through later albums, Live @ Plan 9 reveals their origins as a bar band so good they couldn't be ignored. For longtime followers, this limited color pressing preserves a crucial document from before the breakthrough.
3-LP Blue Swirl Vinyl. Cyber Monday New West Exclusive. Recorded live at Plan 9, Richmond VA, 2000. Pre-breakthrough intensity.