By Jane Roser

If you have a hankering to catch Jason Isbell live, you’d better get on that the minute tickets go on sale, as this Muscle Shoals singer-songwriter has yet again been selling out shows on his tour promoting his critically acclaimed album Southeastern, including Wednesday’s show at Union Transfer.

Holly Williams opened for Isbell and if you haven’t heard of her yet, you soon will. Williams is a bolt of lightening and carries on that trait of incredible talent first heralded by her grandad, Hank Williams, Sr. And her dad Hank Williams, Jr. Williams looks like a bad-ass Molly Sims, taking the stage in fitted ripped jeans, deconstructed white tee, black jacket and playing a guitar signed by music legends Kris Kristofferson and John Prine.

Williams opened up with “Drinkin”, the opening track off her new album The Highway. This is one of my favorite songs on the album and Williams belts out the poetic lyrics with a fiery passion and charming grace, “why are you drinkin’ like the night is young? The kids are in bed and the day is long done, so why are you drinkin’ like the night is young?” Continuing with tunes off her new album, including her “love song to the road,” “The Highway” and a beautiful ballad she wrote about her grandparents, “Waiting On June”, a song in which you can truly see the heartbreak and emotion Williams must feel singing this lovely personal family tribute. Williams has toured with John Prine and thrilled the audience with her rendition of Prine’s song “Make Me An Angel”. Williams will soon complete her two week tour with Isbell, but I highly recommend you check her out the next time she’s in town, as well as the foundation she supports called Kids In Need (www.kinf.org).

Isbell and his band The 400 Unit took the stage following a very long soundcheck, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that Isbell’s wife, Amanda Shires, joined them on stage, as we had thought she was going to be playing a solo show on the west coast that evening. Shires is a joy, so it’s always a treat to see her perform.

Isbell immediately started the show with “Flying Over Water” off his new album and setting the tone for the evening with an electric, high energy performance that kept rolling for the entire one hour, fifty-three minute and two second set. Isbell followed up with “Tour Of Duty” and then “Goddamn Lonely Love”, the popular song he wrote whilst in the Drive-By Truckers- “that’s an old song there.” The band rocked out on the last verse and drove the crowd nuts. Isbell next played “Decoration Day” (the title track to DBT’s 2003 album) which had a cool slide guitar solo and a big bang of a finish.

At this point, some audience members became slightly annoying and started to shout for songs (this is what I miss most about seeing bands like Isbell’s in an intimate listening room atmosphere, as the heckling gets old when it ain’t funny anymore). Isbell lays down the law and says in his sweet southern accent, “I’m gonna tell y’all a secret. That song “Outfit”, I play that every show. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t play it, I love that song. I was playing it on the tour bus right before we came in here. But, I never play it right after somebody hollers out for it. That’s just my own personal rule. I like to sneak it in, so I’m going to leave that choice up to you guys. Your can either hear that one tonight, or you yell it all night, it’s your call.”

Isbell then went right into my favorite song off Southeastern called “Live Oak”, a beautiful, tragic ballad that echoes memories of Townes Van Zandt. “So I carved a cross from live oak and a box from shortleaf pine, buried her so deep she touched the water table line.” This song just gives me the chills, it’s so hauntingly lovely.

Isbell is humble and appreciative when he says, “these are some new songs off my new album and I really appreciate y’all giving that record a chance. It’s a nice thing when you write some songs for a living and people listen to it, and respond to it, and request it. I love the old songs and I’m always going to play the old songs, but it’s really nice to feel like you’re moving forward.”

Next, he performs “Different Days”, “Alabama Pines” and “Stockholm”, all the while sharing loving, flirtatious smiles with his wife who backs Isbell up with her angelic voice. When Isbell sings “Cover Me Up”, the audience reacts with cheers when he sings the verse “but I sobered up, I swore off that stuff, forever this time.” At every Isbell show I’ve ever been to, the audience always responds with their support at this point in the song and it’s touching to witness.

“Relatively Easy” and “Traveling Alone” are played and then Isbell introduces his bassist, Jimbo Hart, with a fun story about them meeting when they were about 15 years old, parking school buses. “They wouldn’t let us drive them, we just had to point where they were supposed to go and it wound up looking a lot like the interstate in Birmingham yesterday.”

“Codeine” off his 2011 Here We Rest album is an entertaining “country song for your cold and flu season.” Isbell started to play a few notes of a song, but stopped to tune his guitar explaining, “I tune because I love y’all.” A woman in the audience let Isbell know that a couple near the front of the stage had just gotten engaged, like just a few seconds ago. Isbell was impressed, “wow. That’s gutsy to do that in public.” After congratulating the couple, Isbell made a disclaimer- the next song had nothing to do with their engagement. Isbell then started playing “Elephant”, which is a tragic song about a man’s wife who is suffering from cancer, so yeah, happy song later, please!

Isbell switched from his acoustic to an electric guitar and rocked out another song he recorded with the Truckers called “Never Gonna Change”, which culminated with strobe lights and dueling electric guitars, it was quite impressive.

True to his word, Isbell finished out the night with crowd favorite, “Outfit”, a song Isbell wrote about his father and Shires rocked out on the fiddle at the tune’s end. “Don’t call what you’re wearing an outfit, don’t ever say your car is broke, don’t worry about losing your accent, ’cause a southern man tells better jokes.”

Returning with Shires for an encore, the duo played the Warren Zevon song “Mutineer”. This is the song Isbell then dedicated to the engaged couple. The last song of the set was the cheeky, endearing “Super 8”, about Isbell’s time staying in crappy motels while touring. Isbell always seems to end with this song and it was the perfect bookend to a fantastic concert.

Barr Weissman, the documentary filmmaker who made the DBT film, The Secret To A Happy Ending, once asked Isbell how he wrote a song like “Danko/Manuel”, he was so blown away that someone so young could write a song so poetic and wise. Isbell, in true form, replied, “I wish I knew, ’cause I’d be writing another one right now.” Weissman was sorry he couldn’t have included Isbell’s thesis on Leonard Cohen or his thoughts on the pain that comes from revealing the true stories behind one’s songwriting for the movie, but as Isbell says about that time in his life, “there were a lot of things I had never seen before…..and they were filthy and dirty and mean and miserable and wonderful.”