Photo courtesy of Old Crow Medicine Show

Old Crow Medicine Show's most recent release, "Live at the Orange Peel and Tennessee Theatre," includes crowd favorites "Downhome Girl," "Alabama High-Test," "Tell It To Me" and "Wagon Wheel."

Last time Old Crow Medicine Show played the Roanoke Valley, it was a near maelstrom by the stage.

Rowdies inside the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre tried to push through a set of security guards to get closer to the band. People jumped up and down, whooped and hollered throughout the show on Oct. 25, 2008.

Old Crow's Ketch Secor remembers the night.

"Let me tell you, I love a little controversy at an Old Crow show," said Secor, who with the band comes back to the valley on Friday -- this time to the Salem Civic Center. "Sometimes you get ticket buyers who, the only thing that they're united on is the fact that they love the band or the music, you know. But on any and every other front, they're totally diametrically opposed. I like to play in Virginia in an election year for this reason."

Suddenly, Secor realizes and mentions that there is a new governor-elect in Virginia. "I like Tim," he said. "He came up to see us play, you know. Tim Kaine -- he's a fan of the Old Crow."

It's difficult to say whether governor-elect Bob McDonnell will come to see the band, but it's a good bet that a lot of his supporters would. And so would many of Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds' supporters. It's just that kind of music.

"I like that if there's anything that unifies them, it's the fact that they love this quirky bunch of ruffians that is the Old Crow Medicine Show," Secor said.

The band recently released a good example of its live output. "Live at the Orange Peel and Tennessee Theatre" was recorded at venues in Asheville, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn. -- places Secor said are among the band's favorites. Included are crowd favorites "Downhome Girl," "Alabama High-Test," "Tell It To Me" and, of course, "Wagon Wheel."

It's the first thing the band has released since "Tennessee Pusher" (Nettwerk) came out last year, just before the Roanoke show. By the time the band hit the stage here, the record was No. 1 on Billboard's bluegrass chart.

A year later, that record sits "pretty well" with Secor, who added that he's thinking of making another one. But "Tennessee Pusher" was probably the last record it will make for Nettwerk, he said, declining to say if the band is looking for a new deal elsewhere.

"But you know, things are shaking up out there in the record business, and you never know who's going to have a new record out or who's going to get dropped down the elevator shaft," he said. "So ... it's a delicate time in the record business, and I'm just glad we're not working at Manpower anymore, in Greensboro [N.C.]."

The money is on the road, anyway. And that's where Secor was when he called on Nov. 6 -- riding the bus with his bandmates through Madison County, Iowa. "The birthplace of John Wayne," he said.

"But it takes you away," he said. "Then you're out on the road all the time, instead of living the normal life at home, which can be sort of disjointed and ghostlike. But how else you going to see Iowa? You've got to get away from home to cross the North River."

In the distance, he could see the Des Moines skyline.