Drive-By Truckers @ Cannery Ballroom, Nashville, Tenn. 8/6/2009

Drive-By Truckers play Cannery Ballroom, Nashville, Aug. 6, 2009.

(Photos by Avalon Peacock)

During their Thursday night show at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville, Drive-By Truckers singer Patterson Hood announced that the band had recently lost its oldest fan: a 94-year-old woman. He then made a plea for those in attendance to live long enough to see old age.

This sentiment seemed to belie the band’s long-standing reputation for fatalism. Many of the Truckers’ songs are drenched in blood, and the characters they sing about aren’t exactly banking on Social Security. So it was nice to hear that the band has rejected the famous Neil Young maxim: “Better to burn out than fade away.”

Back in the day, the Truckers used to guzzle Jack Daniels on stage like it was PBR. But Hood and singer Mike Cooley are now on the north side of 40, with wives and children even milling around backstage.

But the band still rocks, despite their “dad status.” On Thursday night, the Truckers delivered a workmanlike set, pulling from their vast back catalogue, with Hood, Cooley and bassist Shonna Tucker trading off on vocals. Ear drums were mutilated, and fists pumped to the dual-guitar attack.

The show anticipated the band’s Sept. 1 release: The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008). Hood sang a cut from the new album, “George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues,” a tune that recounts the time the country legend ran his SUV into a bridge while chatting his daughter up on the cell. The song urges Jones to hang up and drive: “If you don’t change your ways my friend, you’ll be singing duets with Tammy again.”