Tuesday night I went to see Jason Isbell at Wolf Trap as the second stop in my week of Jason Isbell in which I see him in concert 3 times in one week in 3 different states. As you know if you’ve been around here for any amount of time Wolf Trap is one of my favorite venues. I love sitting out on the lawn and picnicking there during shows. I put my husband in charge of buying these tickets and he bought us pavilion seats, which I was kind of annoyed at but turned out to be a good call because of the never ending torrents of rain that have been plaguing us for the past 5 days. I think the lawn people got lucky though because it might have sprinkled, but it never poured during the show though we definitely hit some downpours on both our drive there and back.

I am apparently doomed to only ever see Hiss Golden Messenger in rainy weather despite their music being the perfect warm summer outdoor concert music. I told my husband last night that the three times I’ve seen them I’ve been wearing my rain boots. They’re also playing at the Newport Folk Festival this coming weekend, so I hope that’s not an omen for rain. They had an unusually short opening set given that they were the only opening act. They only got 45 minutes, which limited what they had time to play. I was bummed they didn’t play “Saturday’s Song”, which is my favorite. Hopefully with a little bit longer at Newport they’ll get it in for me.

As soon as Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit came out on stage I was a little bit bummed to see that Amanda Shires wasn’t with them. She’s Jason’s wife and plays fiddle in his band sometimes when she’s not off doing her own thing. She has a new album coming out in a couple of weeks so I knew she would probably be off on our her own tour soon but figured since she was there Friday night and will be there at Newport since she has her own set there as well that she would still be around at this concert. There were a couple of songs that I think are forever doomed to be poorer without her there. “Cover Me Up” and “If We Were Vampires” will never have the same impact without Amanda there on stage with Jason singing to her. But even though she wasn’t there it was an amazing show and I enjoyed it even more than Friday’s show in Canandaigua.

Part of the reason this show was better was the sound. I have no idea who was in charge of the sound in Canandaigua, but it was terrible. The volume got cranked way up between Brandi Carlile’s set and Jason Isbell’s set for some reason to an uncomfortable level. Even with my earplugs in, which I always wear at every concert (save your hearing kids), the loudness wound up setting off my tinnitus for days. Also the sound mix seemed way off. The drums seemed over power everything else. I was almost a little reluctant to go last night knowing we would be close in the pavilion again because I didn’t want to traumatize my hearing again, especially so close to the last time. Last night was much better and made me realize even more how terrible the sound was at CMAC.

This was the fourth time I’ve seen Jason Isbell while he’s been touring his The Nashville Sound album so I  knew his set would probably be slightly different from Friday night, but figured it would mostly be the same with most of it coming from the new album. Turns out last night’s set was hugely different from Friday night’s, which was awesome for me. He didn’t play nearly as many songs from the new album as he has at the other shows I’ve been to on this tour. I theorized that the new album has a lot of fiddle from Amanda in it, so without her there he decided to go back to more of his older stuff. I have no idea if that’s true, but it was my best guess. He pulled out more from his Drive-By Trucker days than I’ve ever heard him play before and even several songs from his first three solo albums, which he rarely plays much from. He played a lot more from Southeastern than he has at any show I’ve been to recently including “Elephant” which I can’t hear anymore without thinking about this delightful video.

It was a really great show. Jason Isbell and Wolf Trap never disappoint so I should have known it would be wonderful night of music.