HOLY SHIT I KNEW THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS NEVER USED A SETLIST BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THEY MIGHT ALMOST NEED TO TO GET THE INCREDIBLE VARIETY BETWEEN THE TWO SETS THEY PLAYED AT THE 9:30 CLUB THIS WEEKEND ATTENTION MUST BE PAID HERE IS THE EVIDENCE THEY ONLY REPEATED SEVEN SONGS OUT OF A 28/9-SONG SET EACH NIGHT WOW.
| Position | Friday 2/18 | Saturday 2/19 |
|---|---|---|
| START | 10:25 p.m. | 10:25 p.m. |
| 1 | Ray’s Automatic Weapon | The Boys from Alabama |
| 2 | Where the Devil Don’t Stay | |
| 3 | Life in a Factory* | Do It Yourself |
| 4 | Uncle Frank | Gravity’s Gone |
| 5 | Puttin’ People on the Moon | The Company I Keep |
| 6 | Pulaski | Pin Hits the Shell |
| 7 | Dancing Ricky | Sink Hole |
| 8 | Heathens | Self-Destructive Zones |
| 9 | One of These Days | Go-Go Boots |
| 10 | (Something’s Got to) Give Pretty Soon | Birthday Boy |
| 11 | Cartoon Gold | |
| 12 | Box of Spiders | Sands of Iwo Jima |
| 13 | Carl Perkins’s Cadillac | 72 (This Highway’s Mean) |
| 14 | Feb. 14 | Everybody Needs Love |
| 15 | Get Downtown | A Ghost to Most |
| 16 | (It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So | Dead Drunk and Naked |
| 17 | Go-Go Boots | Guitar Man Upstairs |
| 18 | The Weakest Man – Panties in Your Purse (medley) | Hell No, I Ain’t Happy |
| 19 | Nine Bullets | (encore break) |
| 20 | Women Without Whiskey | Used to Be a Cop |
| 21 | Play It All Night Long | Cartoon Gold |
| 22 | (encore break) | Bulldozers and Dirt |
| 23 | Love Like This | |
| 24 | Used to Be a Cop | Mercy Buckets |
| 25 | Marry Me | Marry Me |
| 26 | Let There Be Rock | Let There Be Rock |
| 27 | Zip City | Shut Up and Get on the Plane |
| 28 | Mercy Buckets | Lookout Mountain |
| 29 | People Who Died | |
| END | 1:05 a.m. | 12:55 a.m. |
| Patterson Hood songs | 14 | 14 |
| Mike Cooley songs | 13 | 12 |
| Shonna Tucker songs | 2 | 1 |
*Dedicated by Patterson to “the guy who sang it two years ago this weekend,” when Patterson was down with pneumonia and the band played without him, as I detailed here and discussed with him 11 months later here and with Cooley about a year after that here. Why no, I don’t think I have any kind of a problem. Why do you ask me that?
I like imagining each set of songs as a face-off elimination bracket. The toughest choice to me is “Birthday Boy” vs. “Something’s Got to Give.”
If that’s a tough call for you, I clearly have neglected to provide “Something’s Got to Give” its due consideration. I think I’ve listened to “Birthday Boy” more than any other song released in 2010.
I hear ya. “Birthday Boy” may in fact be one of the best songs ever. I’ve been caught listening to it on repeat on quite a few occasions.