Drive-By Truckers barnstormed into Toronto Wednesday night.

TORONTO - There are only a handful of alt.country or roots rock acts worthy of a wider audience's ears. And when it comes to a the Southern sextet known as Drive-By Truckers, even fewer outfits rival their consistency and work ethic.

Touring behind their latest album Go-Go Boots, Drive-By Truckers barnstormed through a career spanning set over roughly two hours at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre. And while they might have started about a half hour later than planned, the group certainly didn't take any shortcuts.

With a crowd that might have filled about half of the venue – and an Ottawa concert this weekend nixed due to poor ticket sales – Drive-By Truckers opened the night with Ray's Automatic Weapon, a slow slab of Americana which had singer/guitarist Patterson Hood easing into things.

Perhaps what makes the band shine is that they are somewhat akin to Blue Rodeo with Hood and singer/guitarist Mike Cooley complementing each other a la Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor. This also seemed quite evident as the songs Hood delivered were a bit more deliberate and soulful like Everybody Needs Love while Cooley's rockabilly romp during Get Downtown hit the ground running.

Running just as hard was the band itself, as there was literally hardly any stops between songs as drummer Brad Morgan was routinely counting the next tune in seconds following Hood or Cooley's final riff. Morgan also found the time to occasionally smack a gong behind him with the new album title written on it

What seemed to work quite well were the moments where the stage polish got a tad more ragged as was the case during the swampy cover of Warren Zevon's Play It All Night Long and especially Marry Me which resembled something from the Stones circa Exile On Main Street. Both songs also seemed to show off the chops of keyboardist Jay Gonzalez and pedal steel guitarist/guitarist John Neff.

Thanking the crowd for coming out and once name dropping the city into a number, Drive-By Truckers could rarely do wrong except for an average effort on a new track Dancin' Ricky. Here bassist Shonna Tucker took over lead vocals on the Lucinda Williams-esque ditty.

Other highlights included Self Destructive Zones, A Ghost To Most, Sink Hole, the softer Mercy Buckets and Guitar Man Upstairs which began the main set's homestretch.

After reportedly enduring some heckling at a show in London the night before, Drive-By Truckers felt nothing but love as the encore wrapped up early Tuesday morning. Another fine show by a fine roots rock outfit.

Local openers The Beauties nearly wore out their welcome with a longer-than-usual set but earned their keep with Heart Of Stone, Without You and Devil Do.