Patterson Hood | Live At HiFi Farms

Patterson Hood, like three out of the four founding partners of HiFi Farms before him, called Athens, GA home for many, many years before picking up stakes and decamping to Portland. It was still no inevitability that he would want to take part in the Live At HiFi Farms concert series, however, especially since he hadn’t played a house concert in ten years. And so it was with great honor and privilege when we received the word that Patterson was interested. That the show would take place on the Friday night before Halloween only blew our minds that much more.

The fact that Hood’s band Drive-By Truckers- equal parts Steinbeck, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, and Our Band Could Be Your Life- is such a brawny force live did not give the Concert Series Command Center* the pause that one might expect, for we knew that the core of the songs were meant for exactly the kind of intimate setting that the McCormick Mansion has come to offer. Acoustic guitars, an artfully decorated backdrop, rapt listeners... Patterson certainly knew this, and his set list counted on it.

It is not a lie to say that some in the crowd shed actual tears during the course of the performance, including the author. Patterson’s story-songs evoke people and experiences simultaneously universal and unique. It took days for the heavy air of his emotional set to dissipate. We hope to get him back to play again sometime very soon.

*There is actually no such thing as the Concert Series Command Center