If you were in New Orleans for New Year’s Eve ‘78-‘79, and you seriously wanted to party, then you probably headed over to The Warehouse, the venerable midsized concert hall that has hosted so many of the all-time great bands over the past several years. There, after the opening set by the mellowish Firefall, The Marshall Tucker Band would have taken good care of you as the calendar turned over. The MTB were, without question, among the upper echelon of Southern rock bands—there were the Allmans, Skynyrd and then these guys, fronted by reallife brothers Tommy and Toy Caldwell. The Marshall Tucker Band, unlike some of the lesser bands in the genre, possessed an uncanny knack for applying memorable melodies and tightly crafted song structures to their thunderous instrumental roar, and it paid off in a series of rock radio perennials, including “Can’t You See,” “Fire on the Mountain” and their highest-charting single at the time, “Heard It in a Love Song.” All three of those songs were performed this evening, the show went out over the air to over 150 radio stations and all of it is now available on two CDs, with the fidelity brought up to contemporary standards. That the performance itself doesn’t sound as dated as some other Southern rock of the era is a testament to the MTB’s sophistication: the occasionally jazzy guitar licks, the classy drum work of Paul Riddle and the band’s ability to rein in the excess for the sake of the song. More than 40 years later, this music still sounds remarkably fresh.