BY BRIAN CREECH

James McMurtry took the stage like a well-traveled miser, unfazed and poised with his ubiquitous hat doing its best to keep McMurtry's wizened whirlwind of hair from flying out of control.  From the moment he took the stage, he commanded the crowd for two hours, rarely pausing to banter.  It was a whirlwind of Texas blues licks rolling off his guitar, enticing one listener to say, "His solos simply blow my balls out of my sack."

The first half of McMurtry's set featured McMurtry on guitar, erstwhile backup vocalist Ronnie Johnson on bass, and Daren Hess on drums. Big government and corporations, wars and exported jobs all conspire to crush McMurtry's listless protagonists under the cruel thumb of circumstance.  Understated vocals and the pleasantly syncopated rhythm section kept the songs moving, preventing any bluesy platitudes from hijacking the songs and steering them into the ditch.  Older songs mingled with new ones from this year's Just Us Kids.  The band rallied around the title track, delivering a chorus steeped in sun-soaked nostalgia, then maintaining that intensity for "Can't Make It Here," an in-depth didactic chronicle of all the forces set to derail the working class, drawing one of the biggest cheers of the night with the polemic, "Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today?/No I hate the men who sent the jobs away." 

It was balls-out cynicism mixed with an innate storytelling ability that kept the crowd held under McMurtry's power.  New song and mid-set centerpiece "Ruby and Carlos" was just McMurtry on guitar as he weaved a tale about a couple driven a part by years of missteps and failures to connect.    For five full minutes the crowd watched in captivated silence as McMurtry let the story unfold, constantly laying out new obstacles and failures for the titular protagonists.

Perhaps the greatest irony of McMurtry's career is that he isn't more famous.  Robert Earl Keen has covered the song "Levelland" with such frequency that when McMurtry played it to the Athens, GA crowd, one audience member commented, "that was the best cover of a Robert Earl Keen song I've ever heard."  He played a baritone Danelectro, rolling thunderous licks from his guitar while soundman Tim Holt joined the band to play a second guitar and give McMurtry the space to rattle off increasingly supple blues-licks.

McMurtry is a musician's songwriter, receiving bold accolades from Jason Isbell later in the night.  But McMurtry didn't hear those accolades.  He had long since left Athens, having packed up all the band's gear himself before hopping behind the wheel of the van to drive through the night to Nashville to attend the 9th annual Americana Music Awards, where he was nominated for Song of the Year, Album of The Year, and Artist of the Year. [Editor's Note: incredibly, McMurtry got shut out on all three.]

As I watched him load his van and check the best route to Nashville, I realized the hardest truth of McMurtry's songs: McMurtry's narratives cut to the pain of daily toils because for him to keep making music, he's got to put his own back into it.

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Unassuming and a bit jaunty, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit took to the stage like a high-school quarterback at a homecoming game.  Early in the set, Isbell looked out into the crowd and said, "You all look good, except for a few.  But you know who you are, we talked about it, I just wanted to let you know."  It was a welcome joke, reflecting a deep undercurrent of familiarity than ran between Isbell and the crowd the entire night.

Again, the guitar licks were hot.  The centerpiece of the night was clearly Isbell's guitar as he shredded through songs from his Drive-By Truckers days and solo albums alike.  The crowd remained amicable and enthusiastic through the entire set, but really started to let loose when Isbell began strumming the opening bars to "Outfit."  It was the first sing-along chorus of the night, and stood as a reminder that even though Isbell was out touring on his own, many of his former hometown friends remembered his roots.

The sludgy rhythm of Isbell's Truckers compositions stood in stark contrast to Isbell's more recent songs, which tend toward poppier hooks and riffs.  Songs like "Brand New Kind of Actress" and "Chicago Promenade" give Isbell enough room to flex his guitar chops live, but his own prodigious wizardry is surpassed by touring guitarist Browan Lollar, who drew stares of envy whenever he would shrug off complicated licks. 

The band's proficiency shined on the cover songs.  At the midpoint of the set, a familiar repetitive bass lick began to thump.  It's a minute before the guitars kick in, and still no one picks up on the song until Isbell kicks in with the vocal, "Can't seem to face up to the facts/I'm tense and nervous/Can't relax."  Realizing it was "Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads, the crowd went wild. Isbell and the 400 Unit musicians shook off the song's arty-new wave sheen, kicked their guitars into overdrive, and turned it into a southern rock hit that should have been.  Later on in the night, Isbell took an opportunity to display his vocal prowess by covering Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," hitting all the high notes in a way that would make any Irish mother cry.

Jason Isbell writes guitar songs first and foremost, built to display his own power and prowess.  Yet the characters of his own material still tend towards the despair and darkness that characterized all of his DBT work.  Except now he seems less wary of writing sweetness into his songs.  "Chicago Promenade" is a prime example, where the gutsy guitar steps back and a little bit of sentimentality bleeds into the chorus.

Without a doubt though, Isbell is at his best when he is both sentimental and indignant.  He began his encore with "Dress Blues," an anti-war song about a friend of his who joined the military only to come back in a casket.  As he sang, painting the scene of a memorial service in a high-school gymnasium, the Athens crowd stood rapt, displaying a keen understanding of the message that transcended any red state/blue state politics. 

It was the same powerful indignation that capped the set.  After plowing through two hours of music and a fifth of Jack Daniels, the band kicked into "Decoration Day" and the crowd roared.  The tale of a southern feud that has lasted too many generations can be seen as the Isbell's musical manifesto, using the power of his guitar to tear through the prideful idea's that young men die for.  The concert ended in a feedback drenched coda as Isbell and Lollar traded licks like Baptist preacher's tag-teaming a tent-revival.  And when they were done, they simply waved "thank-you" to the hometown crowd and walked off stage.

[Photos Credit: Colin Smith]