REVIEW: Jason Isbell brings literate roots-rock to Symphony Center

By Mark Guarino

EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to an inaccuracy in the reporting of Jason Isbell’s February 12 show at Orchestra Hall, a portion of this review has been edited out.

Symphony Center is not typically known for showcasing songs that might be more comfortably played in a roadhouse, but there was Jason Isbell Thursday playing “Decoration Day,” a song that imagines a son surrounded by the mortality of his family wherever he goes. “My Daddy got shot right in front of his house/He had no one to fall on but me,” he sang.

Isbell is a fixture in the alt-country movement of the last 15 years as the lead guitarist in the Drive-By Truckers, a collective of Alabama musicians who recently have gone their separate ways for solo careers before occasionally regrouping between projects.

“Southeastern,” Isbell’s fourth solo album from 2013, gained notoriety for its literary ambition and soulful emotion, making it top many year-end best-of lists. Which brings him to a venue normally reserved for one of the world’s preeminent orchestras.

While the acoustic-perfect setting over the two-hour show might otherwise create a blurry mess for most Southern rock bands used to cranking it up to quiet the din of the crowd, Isbell and his band used it to their advantage. Over two hours, the band played a mixture of literate roots-rock and ballads that evoked “The River”-era Bruce Springsteen. “Super 8,” for example, allowed the band to crank the volume to the rafters, which at the Symphony Center are sky high.

Near the end the band played “Danko/Manuel,” an expansive tribute to the two principal singers in The Band. Like the title protagonists, the harmonizing was haunting, the lyrics remorseful, but the overall effect profound.

Setlist:

Flying Over Water

Stockholm

Decoration Day

Tour of Duty

Dress Blues

Never Gonna Change

Cover Me Up

Songs That She Sang in the Shower

Codeine

Different Days

New South Wales