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| Jason Isbell - Photo by Alexa Jones |
From the time Jason Isbell's set started with his song "Grown," I stood at the front; questioning the structural integrity of the 400 Bar floor. It gently gave, like a pulse under the weight of the people tapping and stomping their feet. Even from the beginning of this show, I saw the essence of what makes people want to start bands in the first place. That desire to entertain and express one's self while completely rocking out. Taking pulls of a big bottle of Jack Daniels and showing complete disregard for Minneapolis' no smoking ordinance, these Alabama boys brought a Saturday night crowd pure rock and roll revelations.
With the recent release of Isbell's first solo album after leaving the Drive-By Truckers, Sirens of the Ditch, Minneapolis got its share of action, along with a three-song in-store at the Electric Fetus. The club was filled with super-fans and the soon to be converted. The sound at the 400 Bar can be a crapshoot, but tonight everything was in its place. Isbell and his touring band, The 400 Unit, played together seamlessly even after half that bottle was gone.
The untrained eye sees the sweet, round baby-face of Jason Isbell, but don't be fooled—his smooth growl of a whiskey-soaked voice is a tortured storyteller’s and it rang out like a sturdy old bell. 400 Unit guitarist Browan Lollar proved himself worthy of playing a magnificent Les Paul Deluxe gold top, playing like a white boy with the heart of a 78-year-old blues man. I had to force myself to concentrate as he held high court on his side of the stage. Speaking of Lollar, he did a relatively out-of-place, yet awesome cover of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer." That was interesting, and he carved his own niche right into the middle of the show.
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| Browan Lollar & Jason Isbell - Photo by Alexa Jones |
Beside the lovely novelty of that cover, this show was just so wonderfully cohesive, taking its highs and taking its mellows. One of my favorite tracks off Sirens is the slow and sensuous blues-rock of "Hurricanes and Hand Grenades,” which filled me with the satisfaction that only a good song can. The show also wasn't without its Drive-By Truckers songs. Tracks like "Decoration Day" gave the die-hard DBT fans a piece of what started it for them. And a cover of Springsteen's "Atlantic City" forced my endearingly obsessed friend to scream, "It's Bruce!" so loud into my ear it hurt more than the sound from the amps right in front of you when you're not wearing earplugs.
I thought there would be no encore, as the band left the stage and the lights came up. The shows-over-get-the-heck-out-of-here music chimed in, and some blindly accepted the show complete and made their way out the door. The hopeful stuck around and got treated to two solo acoustic songs before the band rejoined Isbell for a beautifully fitful and driving version of "Try" that could melt your face off. After a small break and a crowd-uniting chant of "One more song" broke out, the band indulged us with the requested second encore. Slowly, I realized that they were building into Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak." This would ignite us all into a frenzy, including myself. And break-out I did, along with my initial squeal of recognition and seizure dancing. I'm relatively certain that there was also some serious classic-rock stance choreography as the band charged slowly in unison towards the front of the tiny stage.
As they bore down on the end of the song, I blinked, and somewhere in the middle of it, Bassist Jimbo Hart brought his instrument to the ground in an attempt to smash it. Maybe it wasn't as easy as he expected, because it took at least 45 seconds to do so and I waited for it to go through the floor of the stage. We all stood in excited anticipation of the destruction, as the body broke from its sturdy neck into about four pieces that the faithful proudly hauled away into the summer night.
