“Enjoy your show.” Those words were comforting text from a loved one who was carrying a heart full of Good Friday heaviness. My body was at Boston’s House of Blues, but my head and heart were home. I needed the towering amps to blow through my soul and I asked the Facebook faithful to pray, vibe or use the force… for good. And they both did.

I’d really been looking forward to the Drive By Truckers, and they brought it, but the set list was so catalog deep and of such varied tempo, that to me, it was like a frustrating at bat against an aging Mike Mussina, full of change ups, slow curveballs and the occasional number one. I wanted all high heat.

Not to say it wasn’t a good show. It was, and the 2,449 other people carpeting the floor and papering the walls with sticky spilled drinks seemed to be in unified sway. “Patterson, you’re the f&^%ing man,” was the very direct review of a guy near me. Yeah, Patterson Hood is the man, and his songwriting is stellar, but “the moment” of the show for me was during a song by Hood’s number two, Mike Cooley. “Birthday Boy” is such a fun, rockin’ song, and the moment came at the 3:08 – 3:18 point in this video. At the HOB, that’s when Patterson rose to his Mike with the biggest smile to sing this harmony with his partner Cooley who penned the words:

“I guess that’s why they give us names
So a few old men can say they saw us
rain when we were young.”

To see that unadulterated joy of a guy who loves what he does and really appreciated the words of another, got me. I thought about one “Mr. G.,” Tony Gonnella. He got so much joy out of seeing his son Mike and I rain when we were young. Then I thought about Mike. And Arizona in August. And how I got here. And three words. And how I couldn’t wait to get home.