Jason Isbell Serves Up A Dose of Real America at Chicago's Salt Shed

There's a line in the Manchester Orchestra song 'The Silence' that's been on my mind a lot lately.

You can go anywhere but you are where you came from

Now I'm not normally the type to be walking around with lyrics from concept albums about mining towns in South Dakota stuck in my head, but hey 2024 has been a surprise for everyone so far, right? Regular readers of this site (yes, all three of you) may remember last month's review of Sarah Jarosz's transcendent show at Chicago's Thalia Hall. I briefly touched on my formative years, growing up in very rural northwest Illinois, surrounded by cows, cow smell, a dilapidated barn every once in a while, and trucks. Lots of trucks.

But despite the surroundings of my upbringings sounding very much like a country song, it sure didn't feel like it. I never tapped a keg in the bed of a pickup out in the woods, mostly because we didn't really have any woods (statistically Illinois is the flattest state in the union, which is a horribly depressing fact when you remember states like Nebraska exist). While there was a good amount of 'fun times drinking', it was also surrounded by a good amount of "oh wait that seems like it's way too much for you to be drinking on a Wednesday" drinking from both parents and children. I never had any high school football glory days to look back on because my high school football team was, to be brutally honest, undermanned, undercoached, and just plain terrible (we were 3-24 in my three seasons on the team and my final year we had a whopping 17 of us on the varsity team).

Maybe that's the biggest reason that mainstream country never resonated with me. It always seemed like it was fake nostalgia for a time that probably didn't exist but sounds fun and generic enough on paper that anyone can co-opt it as their own. But that wasn't my life. That didn't feel authentic to what my personal experience was. And so, just like many small towns reference in its lyrics, I put country music and all of its associated musical styles (Americana/roots/folk) in my rearview.

And then 20+ years later I look up at the mirror while I'm driving and Jason Isbell is chasing me down from behind like the T-1000.

No, the six-time Grammy winner hasn't literally been hunting me down, but his music sure has turned its arms into giant knives and lodged themselves into my brain (the Terminator 2 references are done I promise). As gifted a lyricist as he is a guitarist, Isbell is a master of using his songs to paint vivid pictures of rural life, often drawing on his own life for inspiration. I found in Isbell's music the authentic, warts-and-all inspection of what rural life is actually when you strip all the romance and CMA music video sheen away to find the complicated lives and busted relationships reality often serves up.

And as much as I was sure I'd left the kind of music associated with a childhood filled with cornfields and boredom behind, I was wrong. Apparently my musical taste could go anywhere but it is where it came from after all.

Closing out a sold-out two-night stay at Chicago's Salt Shed, Isbell and his band - the 400 Unit, named after the psychiatric ward of a Florence, AL hospital - were ready to deliver a slice of small-town America to the big city.

Kicking off the evening was Palehound, creation of guitarist/singer El Kempner. Trying to describe Palehound is a bit difficult, but in a really good way. Kempner's used the description 'journal rock' to describe Palehound ("just all of my biggest fears splurted onto some vinyl, no different from writing a diary, really"), and that's an incredibly accurate way to describe the lyrical content of the songs. What really kicks things up a notch is wrapping those lyrics in a variety of sounds. Dream pop? Grunge? 90's alt rock jams? All accurate, and sometimes within the same song. For those locals reading, they almost gave me a Ratboys vibe.

Usually sold out shows at the Salt Shed attract a pretty sizable crowd for opening acts, and Palehound took full advantage of the already-capacity crowd, banging their upbeat brand of rock all the way to the back grandstands. If bigger rooms and higher billing are in Palehound's future, they'll have no problem making that jump to the next level.

Comparing yourself to someone that's ultra talented and famous when you are not doesn't usually end well. And I'm sure if you heard me start a sentence with "Seriously though, me and Jason Isbell are basically pretty similar guys", your eyes would glaze over while you simultaneously rolled them so hard they popped out of your skull.

Seriously though, me and Jason Isbell are basically pretty similar guys.

Ok, I'm mostly kidding, but it's kind of true. Less "we're similar guys" and more "we have a lot of the same interests only he does them a billion times better than I do". He can pick up a guitar and write songs on it that earn millions of dollars, dozens of awards, and legions of fans while I can pick up a guitar and keep the attention of my toddler for hundreds of seconds (maybe). He's appeared as an actor in projects like Deadwood: The Movie and Killers of the Flower Moon, while I last acted in a 3-hour original play staged in what was basically an attic above a laundromat in Los Angeles back in 2007. Both of us grew up in rural areas with liberal attitudes and don't hesitate to make those thoughts known on social media, but he's the one writing the Tweet to hundreds of thousands of followers and I'm the one reading that tweet. Hell, not being satisfied in beating me at literally everything else, he also has 2 divorces to my 1.

One of the coolest things about the Salt Shed in Chicago is that they make a regular habit of booking artists for multiple nights, which seems to have fallen out of favor in the late 80's. From Run the Jewels to King Gizzard to Sleep Token to Mt. Joy, they have zero qualms about double and sometimes triple dipping on the same artist. Isbell took full advantage of his second night, switching up the playlist for those diehards that bought tickets to both shows.

While Thursday night's show started on a bit of a serious note with the somber 'Save the World', Friday night's set kicked off with a bit lighter of a tone with 'When We Were Close' and 'Stockholm' a potent 1-2 punch getting the weekend crowd instantly engaged. Isbell and the rest of the 400 Unit (guitarist Sadler Vaden, bassist Anna Butterss, drummer Chad Gamble, and multi-instrumentalists Derry deBorja and Will Johnson) are not only all incredibly high-level musicians, but they have that presence onstage of being completely at ease with each other, almost seeming to enjoy the music they're making onstage as much as the audience is. And while we've already established just how much better Isbell is than I am on guitar, even he was bested by Sadler Vaden's absolutely incendiary soloing during the extended breakdown to close out 'King of Oklahoma'.

Pulling almost equally from 2013's Southeastern and 2023's Weathervanes, Isbell did what he does best - presented the crowd with one slice of America after another. Some slices happy, some sad, some pissed off. And while Isbell may be vocal about his political beliefs in the press and online, there's no bias or agenda in his songs or performances. There's just the truth as it is to the characters in his songs, and he does it in a way that rivals those who came before him like Springsteen and Mellencamp. Depicting an accurate picture of this country, especially when you start getting out toward gravel roads and split rail fences, and not having it come out in a way that pisses of one side of the political spectrum or the other is an incredibly difficult challenge navigated deftly by Isbell. Chalk it up with the rest of the high level things he's just naturally good at.

Despite the overflowing amount of talent Isbell seemingly brings to everything he touches, you wouldn't know it to watch him perform. While "Jason Isbell" comes before "the 400 Unit" on marquees and album covers, he truly gives every member of the band their time to shine and goes about their entire performance with a humble, 'aw-shucks we're just glad to be here playing music for y'all' attitude that makes him all the more likable and pulls you in even further as a member of the audience. Constantly shouting out praise to both his band as well as the audience, the shared level of camaraderie and connection Isbell was able to foster onstage had the audience in the palm of his hand.

And once he has you right where he wants you, dancing with 3,600 of your new best friends to 'Alabama Pines', he drops the heavy 'Elephant' on you and it's just all the more crushing. Because if you're going to buy into the authenticity of the songs about the good times, you know that the ones about the bad times are pulled from somewhere none of us like to visit. Garth Brooks used to sing about having friends in low places, and from the lyrical content of some of his songs you can tell that Isbell lives in that low place and can point out all the landmarks from memory. Drawing on his experiences in dealing with demons of his own over the years, it's the way Isbell sprinkles in the minute details of recovering from a bender or trying to salvage a love you know is no longer worth the effort that breathes that next level of life into them.

Sober now for over a decade, Isbell can revisit those dark places for our benefit, both in the songs he's mined from his experiences as well as being an example of what sobriety can do for you. Like he sang in the chorus of 'It Gets Easier', "It gets easier but it never gets easy." It might not be the "everything's going to be alright in the end" that we want sometimes, but it's also the truth. And telling the truth, being authentic, is what forges such a strong bond, not just between artist and fan, but fans and fans. During his encore's sultry performance of 'Cover Me Up', countless couples in the audience held each other and danced along, clearly having an individual special meaning to each pair.

That's the magic that Isbell's music continues to provide - even if the lives he's singing about aren't exactly your life, they're a real life. They aren't glorifying or glossing over the rough edges of life in this country. They just take the picture of life in this country - good, bad, beautiful, ugly - and present it as it is, no nonsense or frilly bows. It's an authenticity that shined through the entire 19 song set and will continue to deliver every night on the rest of this tour and beyond.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit are on tour in the US through mid August. Dates and links to tickets can be found here.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Setlist - The Salt Shed, Chicago - 3.1.24

When We Were Close
Stockholm
King of Oklahoma
Different Days
It Gets Easier
Something More Than Free
Strawberry Woman
Traveling Alone
24 Frames
Super 8
Alabama Pines
Elephant
Honeysuckle Blue
Cast Iron Skillet
Hope the High Road
If We Were Vampires
Cover Me Up
Decoration Day (Drive-By Truckers cover)
This Ain't It