John Moreland was on first, setting the tone and lathering us up. He’d dressed as I assumed he would for any other gig: just a T-shirt, camo hat, and a beard to rival Hagrid’s. On a stage in the town that loves him most, he laid down track after track. Some were from early albums like In the Throes, but most were from his latest, High on Tulsa Heat. All could be cast in the same category as “You Don’t Care Enough For Me To Cry.”
“It’s a song I just found out was too sad for Dallas/Fort Worth morning television,” Moreland told the crowd gathered at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa.
He strode through his setlist on a stool while coolly cooing about heartbreak, love, and sorrow in Oklahoma. He pinned the dark, earnest grace of the state to the ground with a cunning veracity and utter verisimilitude — even while taking a shot at the city of Sooners with one song.
“This song is called ‘Cleveland County Blues,’” Moreland said. “It’s about how you shouldn’t move to Norman because it’s a real bummer.”
Maybe.
But so is life if you live long enough to get lost in the love, pounded by circumstance and lifted again by conviction and truth, finally won by outlasting the demons who haunt you. Such is the poetry, verse, and beauty of Jason Isbell’s songwriting.
Following Moreland on stage, Isbell was greeted by a crowd that knew him and his work, which both romanticizes and wrestles with the philosophy of hard labor. After all, his home state, Alabama, is a workingman’s state, too. He returned the crowd’s kindness with a setlist showing the range and depth of his growth as a lyricist and vocalist.
With songs like “Never Gonna Change” and “Decoration Day,” he reminded us all of the hard-edged family stories he’d tell as a member of Drive-By Truckers. Next he displayed the subtle change in tone that began to take shape with his first solo album, Sirens of the Ditch, by playing “Dress Blues” early in the show.
Of course, he played songs most of the audience were clamoring to hear off 2013 masterpiece Southeastern. Tracks like “Cover Me Up,” “Stockholm,” “Different Days,” and “Elephant” held the show together for folks who only came to know Isbell in the last couple of years.
The joy — the sheer levity — that came from being a witness to this concert was in the songs he chose to play from his upcoming album, Something More Than Free. His singles off that record (“24 Frames” and the title track) were quickly recognized and applauded by the crowd. But, as with all gifts, the surprise was the best part.
“This a brand new damn song,” Isbell said.
And with that, he and his band broke into “If It Takes a Lifetime,” the upcoming album’s opening track and one he said he’d played for the first time live at Cain’s.
Isbell, who turned 36 earlier this year, has been touring professionally since he was 21 years old. So now, in the prime of his career, we get to enjoy him. The proof of his experience and practiced gifts were evidenced Monday night.
