Surrounded by family, I saw that she was dying alone

Oooh - out on a Monday night!

I don't know if I've previously mentioned it, but in '20-'21 I spent six months working my way through Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. Now, my main take away from this was that Rolling Stone have a very strange definition of "greatest" with an awful lot of the albums I endured being immediately assigned to my mental dustbin, but there were a few artists that I'd never previously heard of that emerged with some credit. One of these was Jason Isbell, whose 2013 album Southeastern features some very finely crafted songs performed with expert skill and restraint, with "Elephant" being (for me) an instantly recognisable masterpiece of songwriting. So when work gave me the opportunity to pop along to the Eventim Apollo to check him out live accompanied by The 400 Unit, I felt it would be rude not to attend.

First up though we had SG Goodman, who had attracted a very decent size crowd for a support act, so I had reasonable levels of hope to balance my complete lack of knowledge. I was imagining a dude in a hat with a guitar, but SG is very much a woman who doesn't feel the need for a hat to keep her guitar company because her lovely voice is more than enough. It's fair to say she's pretty laidback and deadpan ("I’m only allowed to play two feel-good songs") but it was a very enjoyable mini set of some of her songs and a John Prine cover ("All The Best") which I particularly liked. She had an interesting take on the job of a warm-up act - "mah job is to bore you to death or make you angry - that way when Jason gets here you’re all so happy to see him", but it certainly seemed like most people were not in the slightest bit bored or angry at her offerings and I'm going to make an effort to check out more of her stuff.

After a half hour break (of which the roadies spent a whole two minutes wheeling on the instruments), Jason and The 400 Unit maintained the lowkey feel as they strolled on stage with the lights barely turned up and they just got down to it. There were six guys on stage, with four of them playing some type of guitar so it's fair to say we had a string heavy sound going on but there was more variety on display than I was expecting. Most of the songs had a US South vibe going on, but they ranged from country ballads to Southern rock - all performed skilfully by a group of guys happy just to hang out and entertain a crowd who were very pleased to see them.

Jason's got a lovely voice and is also top notch on his various guitars - he's not one for showing off with his solos (and there were certainly no spotlights involved) but he made it all look very effortless as he put out some fine sounds. His interplay with Sadler Vaden (cool name!), the other main guitarist, was impressive with their intertwining solos working well - they were having a blast up there. The other guitarists were also impressive with one regularly swapping over to the double bass and the other spending half his time on drums - it would also be rude of me not to also mention the main drummer and keyboard player who are less flashy (in a very unflashy outfit) but certainly quietly expert in what they do.

I was very pleased that "Elephant" was played - it was the highlight for me but that's mainly because I didn't actually know any of the other songs. I enjoyed them all though, with "Alabama Pines" and "If You Insist" shining through on first listen for me. If I had to quibble, I'd suggest it took the sound guys a lot longer than I was expecting to get the levels right (particularly since it was the last night of the tour) but they got there about a third of the way into the gig. But the level of songwriting and musicianship on display was impressive throughout and I couldn't help but admire it all - I imagine their US shows are a much livelier affair but the vibe was just perfect for me and I emerged into a cold November Monday feeling nicely chilled out so thanks to SG, Jason and The 400 Unit for a great evening.