Review: Jason Isbell - 4/9/07 - First Ave. - Mpls, MN

The Jason set was simply fantastic. Wow. Only 9 songs, but man oh man, was it good. Great band, too. Browan Lollar was awesome, as was the rest of the band -- very simpatico to the early 70s "classic rock" vibe that Jason has got going. I figured they would "rock," but i wasn't quite prepared for just how much they kicked everybody's asses. Like i said, wow. Jason looked and sounded great. He was effusively thankful and seemed to be in a really good mood. He even referred to Patterson as "my friend" when he introduced "The Assassin." There was an excellent turnout for an early opening set; clearly more than you'd expect from the DBT die-hards and curious Son Volt fans. Everybody i saw was totally digging Jason and the 400 Unit. In fact, i noticed a significant "chick factor" in the audience -- lots of very enthusiastic pretty young ladies who i don't remember seeing at previous Truckers or SV shows. That's always a good sign. :-)

I'd read about his full length set the nite before in Iowa just before i went downtown yesterday and, needless to say, i was very envious of those people after getting an appetizer version.

Set went something like this:

Try
Grown
God Damned Lonely Love
The Assassin
Magician
Dress Blues
Jailbreak >
Never Gonna Change
Chicago Promenade (on piano)

Dress Blues is such an amazing song. Jason's intro and the band's performance of this was incredibly powerful and moving. That couplet that goes something like "he never planned on the bombs in the sand / he never planned on sleeping in his dress blues" is positively chilling. I quickly gathered that jason was a gifted songwriter back in 2001/2, but this shit is just off the hook. And to think that last nite's set was so perfect without the likes of "Outfit" or "Danko/Manuel." Another good sign.

I "grabbed" the 3 new songs off his myspace page last week and have been playing them constantly on my computer and ipod. Judging from the reaction to those and some early field reports on the various forums i frequent, i'm not the only one looking forward to the album.