Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Bowery Ballroom, Dec. 7, 2012

By Kara Sprague

Anyone who follow's musician Jason Isbell's Twitter page knows the man has a sense of humor.
That sense of humor extended to when it came time to name his tour in support of his newest album, "Live From Alabama" is his third wiith the 400 Unit after two studio releases,
It goes back to a song called "Outfit", a song filled with love and humor inspired by a conversation with his father. The song was one of the standouts Isbell wrote during his stint in the Drive-By Truckers. It remains a perennial in his sets as he goes further into his post-Truckers career.
If you go to an Isbell show, you're going to hear "Outfit" much more often than not.
Isbell, on his website, told the story of one of those shows.
“One particular night,” he explains, “there was one guy in the crowd, he was three quarters of the way back. I could hear him yelling, ‘Play “Outfit!”’ He eventually wiggled his way up right in front of me … he got really frustrated and he wouldn’t even wait until a song was over, every time I took a breath he would yell right in my face, ‘Play “Outfit!”’ I was about to play something else, and I look down and he’s about to cry. He said, ‘Man, stop fuckin’ around and play “Outfit!”’ We figured we’d call this tour the Stop Fucking Around and Play ‘Outfit’ Tour for that guy.”
That song, part of a good cross section of Isbell's career, made the setlist for the 400 Unit's show at the Bowery.
Isbell's one of the finest Southern rock musicians out there today, not in what some people expect from the term, which might conjure up visions of compilation albums with Confederate flag imagery and busty women in cowboy hats on the cover.
Rather, Isbell works well as a literate storyteller, skillfully creating characters and drawing details into his songs,
As evidenced by the Bowery show, Isbell and the 400 Unit are capable of delivering a tour of the South musically. Bases were covered, from Muscle Shoals and Memphis soul to Nashville country to New Orleans funk to muscular folk straight ahead juke joint rock and roll.
The tour was delivered through a set of 18 songs --  ten off Isbell's albums, five of his DBT contributions and a trio of covers.
The expanded palette served Isbell well, as it has since he parted ways with the Truckers.
Opening with the solid 1-2 punch of "Tour of Duty", the last song off Isbell's latest studio release ("Here We Rest") and DBT standard "Decoration Day", the band delivered a steady set that never dipped while offering its share of high points.
One was "Dress Blues", a song Isbell wrote for his pre-400 Unit solo debut "Sirens of the Ditch."
The song was dedicated to the man it was written for, Matthew Conley, a Marine corporal from Isbell's hometown who died in Iraq, just two days before he was scheduled to be shipped home and a week before his 22nd birthday.
The melancholy song gains its power by downplaying any political overtones for a sense of loss for someone taken too soon from a community small enough to feel that loss deeply.
Isbell's skills in reflective moments, as with "Dress Blues" and the first encore song, DBT's "Danko/Manuel" made his songs a nice change of pace from the often grittier material on those Truckers' records. They played wall off the Bowery set's rockers.
"Try", off "Sirens" surged with power. The anthemic DBT track "Never Gonna Change" showed Isbell and Co, capable of turning up the volume with aplomb.
Response to newer material was encouraging. Audience members responded pretty much as enthusiastically to songs like "Alabama Pines" and "Codeine" off "Here We Rest" as they did to classic Truckers material.
The covers showed off the versatility -- the southern soul of Candi Staton's "Heart on a String", an energetic take on the Meters' "Hey Pocky A-Way" (with drummer Chad Gamble on vocals) that would have brought a smile to Lowell George's face and a capable run through Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" that closed the night.
And yes, they did play "Outfit."
Isbell told the story of the tour name, embellishing it with the occasional quip, While the story meant that some guy in the crowd was guaranteed to yell "Play Outfit!" between songs the rest of the night, the song was a highly welcome, if obvious, part of the set.
Communist Daughter, a Minnesota-based band, opened the show with a set combining agreeable folk and moments of New Pornographers-like poppiness. Even some of the band's moments clicked better than others, it served as a perfectly capable warm-up for the headliner.
As for Isbell, his songs deserve get heard by a wider audience, but the crowd that filled up most of the Bowery had to leave pretty satisfied.