We first came across Jason Isbell due to him at the time being married to the fantastic Amanda Shires, whom we got into after seeing her at Black Deer Festival. So of course, we did the old YouTube thing and came across videos of him either supporting Shires or vice versa, and sounding okay, not blown away, but enough to make the effort to cover this Wolverhampton gig at The Halls. And my god we were happy we did. Isbell and his band were brilliant, with a set full of class songwriting and their delivery was superb. He apparently last played Wolverhampton at the much smaller Wulfrun Hall in 2006. Since then, he has grown into a multi-Grammy winner, with a much larger audience, mainly in the US, but slowly making inroads over here, and judging by the response of the crowd tonight, the more he visits the more he will definitely grow.

This tour is in support of his album of 2023, ‘Weathervanes’, and of course it featured heavily in the setlist. The more initiated amongst us were aware with these tunes anyway, but even us not aware were nodding and swaying like we knew them. Isbell doesn’t come across as an overconfident frontman, but as the night went on, he seemed to come to life, and he is no slouch when it comes to playing guitar. Together with the other guitarist, Sadler Vaden, blew us away with a blistering guitar whirlwind on the Isbell classic, ‘This Ain’t It’, spine tingling. Isbell’s songs are structured beautifully, with emotive lyrics, and some hitting on the struggles he has had with addiction, like the incredible, ‘Cover Me Up’, from acoustic to full on rockers. The thing that shines through is the lyrics, like ‘If We Were Vampires’, the title is misleading, the meaning of this beautiful song is about two people looking forward to a life together but acknowledging that one day, one of them will be alone, tear jerking.

A faultless performance left the crowd in awe, and like us we cannot wait for a return to our shores. Let’s put it this way, he has been on my car on loop ever since, he was that good.

Photos by Geoff Griffe
Review by Jenny Griffe