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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Blow Into L.A. With Powerful ‘Weathervanes’ Songs at the Hollywood Bowl: Concert Review
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit came to the Hollywood Bowl and provided L.A. with a long-overdue treatment of their potent 'Weathervanes' songs.
“When We Were Close” and “Miles,” the starting and finishing songs in question, couldn’t be better examples of the wellsprings of rock power and emotion Isbell brings to much of his material — in a stolid, unshowy way, one that doesn’t leave his heart out on his short sleeves. (Or, as the refrain actually goes, “You were bound for glory and grown to die… Why wasn’t I?”) It doesn’t hurt that there’s a slash-and-burn quality to the riffing of Isbell and fellow lead guitarist Sadler Vaden that makes the song feel like a rougher and tougher rocker than it is at heart. “Miles,” meanwhile, is a great set-ender for Isbell, although he doesn’t always employ it as such, just as it made an effective album closer for “Weathervanes.” At seven minutes plus, and split up into multiple parts, it’s the closest thing he’ll probably ever do to prog-rock, and a complete outlier in his catalog — but why should Billie Eilish get all the contemporary suites?
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