Jason Isbell photos by Glenn Cook
Jason Isbell played a solo show on Thursday January 15 at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, Virginia that featured a stunner of a setlist that ranged through material from long ago to just recently, and held fans rapt in his tributes to Todd Snider (“Play a Train Song”) and John Prine (“Storm Windows”) and storytelling along the way.
By the next morning after this show, fans in the fan groups were already buzzing with enthusiasm, with many saying this was the best show they’d ever seen, sharing the setlist and the experiences, with other fans excitedly chatting about their hopes for the upcoming dates near them.
Jason’s solo shows are full of his stories shared in his easygoing, lighthearted way. Fans were treated to stories about his grandma that went from funny (she kept the fat free kind of Dreamsicle and she had a missing front tooth) to amazing (she was 33 when he was born and there is a picture of him with his mom, grandma, great grandma and great great grandma all at his mom’s high school graduation.) With show opener “Children of Children” the echo of a story he had told earlier regarding a certain corndog in a certain backpack hung over the room.
He addressed the line about the trailer fire in Arkansas in “Crimson and Clay,” explaining that the trailer had happened to a trailer full of gear pulled behind the Drive-By Truckers’ van in the early days. The deal was, the grease cap would come off the wheel and then the friction would create smoke, and that this happened a few times. One time when their bass player, presumably Earl, was driving, a woman pulled up beside them and called out the window: “You guys are on fire.” To which the bass player responded with a grinning ‘thank you,’ thinking that perhaps she knew who they were. But it was the trailer that was on fire behind them.
There were rich and intense songs from Jason’s Drive-By Truckers days: “Goddamn Lonely Love” and “Danko/Manuel.” Songs from his recent album Foxes in the Snow, including the title track, “Ride to Robert’s” Crimson and Clay” and the piercing “Gravelweed” and “Eileen.” In referencing his recent album, Jason referred to it as “personal song” and then joked that all his albums were personal songs, and that who was he kidding, he didn’t have any secrets.
In the mix was the heart rending “Dreamsicle.” In “Alabama Pines,” the last verse seemed especially enunciated somehow, “Liberties that we can’t do without seem to disappear like ghosts in the air, when we don’t even care it truly vanishes away.” In “Elephant” everyone collectively swallowed the lumps in their throats.
The idea of a Todd Snider song was teased a few songs earlier on than when Jason finally played it in the encore. After a story about Todd Snider telling hecklers “I thought I told you to wait in the truck” (a method also used by Dolly Parton), Jason talked about one particularly insistent fan who repeatedly demanded that he play “Outfit.” At that, one fan in the audience at the Hylton was heard saying to folks nearby “he’s going to play ‘Play A Train Song’,” given that Todd Snider’s “Play a Train Song” is also about a perennial heckler of sorts. But then Jason instead headed into “Outfit.” Four or five songs later, though, during the encore, he did mercifully play it, and the gentle spirit of the recently deceased Todd Snider seemed to hang in the air for a moment to help mutual fans heal and release a few tears.
This was a night with a fresh mix of songs both old and new and seldom played, like “Magician” from Jason’s early album Sirens in the Ditch, and “Cigarettes and Wine.” Love songs “Cover Me Up,” “Foxes in the Snow,” and “If We Were Vampires” each had their moment in the spotlight too. The full setlist is just below.
The Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas Virginia is a lovely modern theatre on the George Mason University’s spacious campus, and was a welcome new frontier for Jason Isbell and his fans alike to explore together.
Hit his tour if it comes near you: https://www.jasonisbell.com
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: Show Review: Jason Isbell w/ Alejandro Escovedo at Wolf Trap and here: REVIEW: Jason Isbell “Foxes in the Snow”
Setlist:
Only Children
The Magician
Foxes in the Snow
Cigarettes and Wine
Storm Windows (John Prine cover)
Danko/Manuel
Ride to Robert’s
Crimson and Clay
Eileen
Dreamsicle
Songs That She Sang in the Shower
Gravelweed
Goddamn Lonely Love
Streetlights
Alabama Pines
Elephant
Outfit
Different Days
Cast Iron Skillet
If We Were Vampires
Encore:
Relatively Easy
Play a Train Song(Todd Snider cover)
Cover Me Up