Jason Isbell + 400 Unit at The High Noon Saloon, May 27, 2011

Jason and crew got a late start to their Friday night show in Madison due to some minor power issues.  Around 11:15 PM, JI+400 Unit rolled on to the stage in typical fashion; priming up and passing around a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels.  They opened with a couple cuts from their new album, Here We Rest and then preceded on to an amazing version of “Decoration Day” from Jason’s Drive-By Trucker days. The song was climaxed with a four minute slide guitar breakdown that made everybody in the room gaze in awe at Isbell’s talent. One thing I really noticed about Jason this time around was his ability take charge and come forward with his guitar. He is such an accomplished songwriter and guitarist, but has seemed to sit back and let  Browan Lollar take the reins on most of the solos/leads. Lollar has always been strong element to the 400 Unit and he brings an important dynamic to this sound, not only with his vocals, but his guitar work as well. This line up seems to really fit well together and can only get stronger as time goes on.  The band usually pulls out a few choice cover songs in the set, this time the High Noon crowd got to hear a great version of  “Sway” (Rolling Stones) as well as “Stone Free” (Hendrix) which featured some sweet guitar exchanges from Isbell/Lollar.  The band came out for a three song encore and brought out (show opener) Maria Taylor and her sister to sing along on “Codeine”, a favored track from Here We Rest.

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