I've seen somewhere in the ballpark of 500 shows in the last 30 years, and I don't think I've ever heard a concert audience as quiet as the one in Madison a few weeks ago when Jason Isbell played "Last of My Kind" and "Cover Me Up" at Breese Stevens Field in Madison, WI, a couple weeks back. That the silence in the open-air soccer pitch held as traffic, including a couple of Harleys, rushed past on adjacent East Washington Avenue, made it even more remarkable.
"Last of My Kind" came first, and so the quiet was more shocking, but it was just as stark during "Cover Me Up" four songs later, at least until Isbell sang the "I sobered up" line, at which the crowd cheered in support, solidarity, or both. And that silence allowed the night's most powerful moment to achieve maximum effect. During the last verse and chorus of "Cover Me Up," drummer Chad Gamble pounded his floor tom with mallets in a repetetive 3-beat pattern, syncopated against the song's waltzing rhythm. Those drumbeats only heightened the song's sense of desperation and urgency. You hear a hint of it in the YouTube link to the song above, but it was much more prominent in Madison. And then, after the song had grown to stadium-sized proportions, Isbell made it intimate again with a sweet, short acoustic guitar flourish that brought the song to a close.
The harder-rocking moments of Isbell's 90-minute show were almost as powerful—"Cumberland Gap,""White Man's World," and especially a slashing "Decoration Day" from his time with the Drive-By Truckers. And the two-song encore delivered both extremes, opening with the lovely acoustic "If We Were Vampires" before jumping into the Truckers' "Never Gonna Change," which culminated in a guitar duel between Isbell and Sadler Vaden. (I have to admit, though, I kept waiting for fiddle player Amanda Shires to join in and kick both of the boys' asses.)
All of which is to say that Isbell and his band the 400 Unit is one of the best outfits on the road right now. And opener Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls (here's a review from back in 2015) aren't far behind, as they took a crowd of a few thousand (most of whom had never heard of them) into converts jumping and singing along.
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