Jason Isbell Had to Pee
A report from opening night of a tour, and thoughts on aging.
One hour into an acoustic set on a Wednesday night in Durham, North Carolina, the singer excused himself for a five-minute break. He had just finished “Elephant,” a song so drenched in grief and heartache, my seatmates in the crowd used the interlude to find tissues for their tears.
Jason Isbell, on the first night of his 2026 tour featuring solo shows and full sets with The 400 Unit, had played alone for more than an hour before the break. Just the artist and his guitar, perched upon a well-worn wooden chair and dressed in a dark jacket and pants, wire-framed glasses like he recently wore on The Late Show.
After the break, Isbell returned, admitting he had to use the restroom.“Everyone pees,” he quipped upon returning before belting the opening lines of “Bury Me” from his 2025 solo album, “Foxes in the Snow.”
This was this writer’s third time seeing Isbell in concert, the others with the 400 Unit, his backing band. The first was February of 2022. COVID was still top of mind, and Russia had just invaded Ukraine. I was in Santa Barbara with a friend; we had made the drive up Highway 1 on a work night. I remember a large great horned owl flying overhead while we waited outside the venue. For an encore, Isbell invited the legendary David Crosby on stage, who played with the band during a cover of “Ohio”. We’d been tipped off to this by a ticket scalper in line who said he had a buddy inside during soundcheck who saw Crosby on stage. He told us it was to show support for Ukraine, but I recall Isbell calling Crosby a good friend whom he always visited when he was in that part of California. David Crosby died about 11 months later.
I don’t remember my parents being big Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young fans when I was younger. At least it wasn’t the kind of music they played in the house, so I was lucky that night to be with someone who had, whose joy at seeing Crosby led to an excited phone call home as we cruised back to Los Angeles. Two generations bonding over protest rock.
The next time I saw Isbell in concert, I was traveling alone in a new city, in a new part of the country where I was living for the first time. It was 2024, six weeks before an election. I was regularly seeing a therapist for the first time, trying to figure life out. The band came out swinging with “King of Oklahoma” so loud you’d think they wanted Tulsa to hear them all the way from Durham.
What struck me most about that night, besides my own solitude, was how little Isbell interacted with the crowd. A few asides stand out, like when he covered “Just Like Heaven” during the encore, or when he turned the keys over to Sadler Vaden, his backing vocalist, to drive the show with a cover of Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s “Honeysuckle Blues.” But that night was about the music.
But this most recent trip to Durham, while he shed the band, Isbell brought along the jokes and stories. Besides his pee break, he shared the process of recording “Foxes in the Snow” at Electric Lady Studio in New York, the inspiration behind the song “White Berreta,” and stories from the set of Killers of the Flower Moon. He shared that if the father in “Speed Trap Town” had lived, he’d be the kind of guy who joined ICE. “But I killed that motherfucker,” he said to cheers.
Before the show, my girlfriend and I talked about seeing Isbell in the past, separately, and how he didn’t do much back and forth with his audience. Did removing the band and moving physically closer to the audience put us all on the same level? Or is he just in a more comfortable place now, compared to the last few shows I saw him? I don’t know the man, but I listened to his latest album, which is full of post-divorce regret and new love joy; it’s easy to make that connection.
“Old songs, new songs, and in between songs” was his set list and theme of the night. Some of the songs he sang, he said, he doesn’t like at all. Maybe that was for laughs, maybe it’s the truth. But the old songs felt worn in a comfortable way that night. Like that shirt from college that still fits right somehow. Songs I’ve heard countless times, and seen live now multiple times, were stripped down to the bones. Isbell’s aging voice was competing only with his guitar for our attention. He still hit all the notes, and the guitar never missed a beat.
His second break of the night led to a five-minute standing ovation until he returned for an encore. He kicked it off with “Cover Me Up,” a song so deeply romantic and personal it almost hurts to hear, maybe more so unplugged. The lyrics were the same, the applause after he sang “I sobered up and swore off that stuff forever this time,” was still there. But the feeling in the auditorium, at least in my seat, had shifted. I was only one section over from the last concert, with an almost identical view of the stage. But it was like seeing it for the first time. Aging, along with an artist whose discography I’ve memorized. The songs stay the same, the old, the new, the in-between, but the way the songs hit my ears was new. The heartbreak even sounds beautiful again. Nostalgia wasn’t a crutch this night, but a launching pad to something new.
The show ended with “True Believer,” mournful and forceful at the same time. And just like that, the lights were up, and we were out in the cold night air, heading back to the cars. Some heading home, some to bars, some just into the night, until the next time.
For one night, we really were true believers, babe.