There’s a moment—and it comes in the last song of the main set, “Cover Me Up”—that seems to encapsulate the whole of the show. The song begins with Jason Isbell alone as he sings perhaps his most personal moment.
As it progresses, he’s joined by what he’d termed earlier as “the rock and roll band The 400 Unit,” each in turn until the song reaches its crescendo.
That would be good enough, except for the line “I swore off that stuff, forever this time.” He means it. The crowd claps. We all know his struggles. This is artist, band, and audience as one.
Jason Isbell, if we’re honest, may be the best storyteller in music right now—you can’t listen to “Weathervanes,” his last album, and not think that—but would you say he was a household name? Probably not, and yet the Wolverhampton Civic Hall is not small, and it’s packed. To know Isbell is to love him. It’s that simple.
There’s nothing showy about him. No long talks, just an occasional “thanks for treating us so good,” none of the Springsteen-esque fire and brimstone, and to his credit, no “audience participation.” Rather, for almost two hours, this show exists to play brilliant songs brilliantly—in that respect, it has much in common with Bob Dylan’s performance here the other week.
The solo on the incredible “King Of Oklahoma” underlines that early, or the accordion on “Strawberry Woman” (“you can’t look at the damn thing and not smile,” reckons Isbell), which gives a clue as to the depth of the material, are from the top drawer.
They all are.
One thing he does have in common with Springsteen is a desire to mix up his set. And ok, this might mean you miss your favourite (in MV’s case, the lack of “When We Were Close” is a blow), but it does mean each show is unique.
So it is that the rainy Black Country is treated to a lot of his solo material before the 400 Unit, but when that sees “Travelling Alone” and “Flying Over Water” played, then who’s complaining?
“Alabama Pines” pops up halfway through to give a highlight, but nowhere is the genius (word used deliberately) of what they can all do then look no further than the brutal fragility of “Elephant” being followed by a real rocker in “Super 8,” and you can almost feel them let themselves go.
“If We Were Vampires,” a song he did with his wife Amanda Shires, translates superbly to this format, and “Miles,” the epic closer of “Weathervanes,” almost demanded to be played.
Considering the lack of “rock star” about all this, it is almost a surprise he goes down the route of doing an encore. It is no shock, however, that the trio that are played therein are as excellent as they are well-chosen.
An Isbell solo tune, “24 Frames,” given the band treatment to great effect, and “Cast Iron Skillet”—one of a plethora of gems that “Weathervanes” has—belongs here, while “This Ain’t It” is elongated with a brilliant solo, fitting of a man who bought Ed King of Skynyrd’s Les Paul.
Everything about this screams “class.”Everything about it just says, “This is wonderful” and yet again, by only the virtue of incredible music and the ability to carry people with him, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit have delivered one of the concerts of the year.
JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT @ THE CIVIC AT THE HALLS, WOLVERHAMPTON 23/11/2024
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