kevdonahue

I’ve seen Jason Isbell — with and without the 400 Unit — 16 times since 2014. And I have to say, he’s never sounded better, more sure of himself and his music, than last week at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J.

It’s hard to quantify, because I have seen some great concerts — the Saturday night at Shoalsfest 2021, New York’s Beacon Theater in February 2016, my initial concert at Union Transfer in January 2014 (check out this setlist! Streetlights!!!) — but there’s always been something, a hesitancy, a reluctance, a choosing of one against another. There was none of that at the State Theatre.

That could be the absence of his wife, Amanda Shires, a prodigious talent in her own right but a superstar extra in the 400 Unit. She seems to be sitting out this tour, as she concentrates on her own career. Or maybe she is just giving the guy some room. The two famously almost divorced during the recording of his previous album, Reunions. (Don’t believe me? Watch the HBO documentary, which darn near captures it.)

Anyway, Reunions was recorded as covid relented after two years of hell, and maybe we all were ready to divorce the person we had spent the past two years with. Rather than record new material, Isbell then made good on a presidential campaign promise and kicked out Georgia Blue, a bunch of covers of artists from the fulcrum state in the 2020 presidential election.

That meant that by the time he recorded Weathervanes last fall, it had been a long-ass time since he produced original music.

And what music he created. It’s no great insight that he sensed that he lacked some rock-n-roll muscle in his shows over the past few years, and he remedied that with Weathervanes. There are at least 4 shit-kicking rockers in there. And seeing it performed live, I’m 400% convinced Dr. Isbell had arrived on the same diagnosis as me.

In order:

King of Oklahoma: It’s one of the songs on the record he said owe a debt to his time as a member of the Drive-By Truckers, and that is brought home live, where this song takes on a propulsive strength you just don’t get from the recording.

When We Were Close: About his one-time friend Justin Towns Earl, it’s a no-holds-barred remembrance that makes me think of what Jason’s mom told CBS News seven years ago. “We have a joke in our family,” she says. “Be careful what you say in front of Jason, or it’ll show up in a song usually.”

This Ain’t It: It starts like with this classic opening stanza:

Baby, how’d you end up here
In a Texas town in a wedding gown
With a near beer?

And then it just becomes an Allman Brothers Band song, just not by them. It’s an absolute killer live, with Jason and guitarist Sadler Vaden going at it. An instant classic. Can’t wait to hear it twice more in Nashville this October.

Miles: This isn’t a Drive-By Truckers song, it’s more like what would happen if Tom Petty and Paul McCartney had a song baby. It’s seven-plus minutes long, live it includes an ungodly loud bridge with two drummers beating the absolute hell out of their drum sets, and it might be the loudest Dad Rock in the history of the universe. Loved it.