The Jason Journals: Memphis

Isbell solo in Memphis, and how live music is my anchor.

Over the last year I started a tradition — after every Jason Isbell show, I come back here and document it. These aren’t reviews. Y’all know how I feel about Isbell, so a traditional review would get old fast. These are a documentation of standout moments, what made each show different, and a personal reflection on what it all means to me. This one goes a little deeper than usual.

This show was at the Orpheum in Memphis, Tennessee. It had been almost three years since Isbell played Memphis, at the botanical gardens with the 400 Unit, and I was there for that one too. Since I didn’t have the blog yet, I’ll share a little about it. I broke my foot that week, so I was stuck in a lawn chair when my heart ached to be in the pit. It was still special. It was the first time I saw the band with Anna Butterss and Will Johnson, and I heard “King of Oklahoma” live for the first time. Jason also announced to the crowd that he had received a real degree, not honorary, from the University of Memphis, and the joy on his face that night is one of my favorite show memories. That show was also the first Isbell show I got to take my mom to. We used to go to concerts together all through my teenage years, but once I started college and she started law school, those trips became rare. This 2026 Memphis show was her third time seeing Isbell, but her first time seeing him solo, which made it special before it even started.

The Orpheum is truly the perfect venue for a solo Isbell show. It’s ornate and beautiful, with elegant chandeliers and fixtures throughout. It reminded me aesthetically of the Fox Theater in Atlanta. It’s also in a great location in the heart of downtown Memphis on Beale Street, so when you visit, you are fully immersed in the musical nightlife of the city.

The show kicked off with “Dreamsicle” and it did not take even five minutes before the vibes got very sad, in true Isbell fashion, with “White Beretta.” That song is one of the most emotionally potent in his catalog, and hearing it stripped down acoustically makes it cut even deeper. It does mention Memphis, which led to an eruption of woos from the crowd. Isbell doesn’t leave you in tears for long, because as soon as he finished he launched into the story of when he drove a white Beretta with no AC from Memphis to Alabama in July with the windows down and the heat cranked up, and how a friend spilled beans in that car and he’s pretty sure those beans are still dried up in there. These storytelling sessions are what make the solo shows stand out. When you see the band you get some funny banter, but in these solo shows the stories feel like companions to the songs. I don’t want to get too into detail because you really need to hear Jason tell them, but they make me crack up every time.

Coming into this show, the two songs I most wanted to hear were “Live Oak” and “Dress Blues.” I’ve heard “Live Oak” a couple of times, and although the song is bleak, the way he delivers the vocals always soothes me. It’s become a weird comfort song. It starts a cappella, and being in a solo setting where there’s a moment of complete stillness before you hear “there’s a man who walks beside me who I used to be” will never not send chills down my spine. Beautifully haunting.

“Dress Blues” is a song I had never heard live before. It’s special to me because it was one of the first Isbell songs I really loved. The first album of his I heard was Live from Alabama, and I remember being so moved by that song. I have processing challenges, and it is genuinely difficult for me to figure out the meaning of a song no matter how many times I listen. But the way Isbell writes works for my brain. “Dress Blues” is so descriptive and visual that I can picture a movie while I listen, and it was one of the first times I could truly process a song without Googling it. It hits even harder now given the current political climate, and as much as it’s devastating that a song like that is still relevant, there’s something cathartic about revisiting it. He followed it with “Tour of Duty,” which is from a different album but thematically pairs perfectly, and that back to back was a definite highlight. Another standout was “Chaos and Clothes” and “King of Oklahoma” played back to back, two of my absolute favorites. And vocally, the moment of the night was his cover of Bon Iver’s “Beth/Rest” in the encore. It is probably one of the most impressive and chilling vocal performances Isbell delivers and it is always a treat to hear.

Overall this was a very well-rounded set. Five songs from Foxes in the Snow, two DBT songs, and several that rarely make the rotation. The one downside was the crowd. Despite the no-phones policy, people were recording all night, shouting requests, and generally not reading the room for a quiet acoustic show in a historic theater. Isbell even joked that if you yell a song, he won’t play it. It was still a special night regardless.

Now for the part I really want to talk about.

I started seeing Isbell in 2022, and in four years I have been to 16 shows. For the last year, I have always had an Isbell show on the calendar, and words can’t explain how important that is for me. I am a PhD student, so naturally I experience a lot of stress. Change isn’t easy for me to process, and adapting to a new city while also adjusting to the intensity of doctoral work is difficult, even though I love what I’m studying. I remember standing at the Pinnacle shows last March telling everyone around me that since I was starting my PhD, I probably wouldn’t be able to go to many shows for a while. Thank god I was wrong about that.

What I realized in my first semester is that I need to carve out things in my life that let me decompress. I live apart from my family, most of my friends are out of state, and socializing is unpredictable with my schedule. But picking out shows I know I can attend, and carving out that time to take a weekend off, go somewhere new, see people I love, and listen to my favorite songs has been one of the most genuinely beneficial things for my mental health.

Jason’s music has been the soundtrack to my life for the last five years. His voice has this effect on me where as soon as I hear it, I feel at peace. Sometimes I’ll be deep in the writing trenches, feeling pretty low, and I don’t even want to listen to music, but then I’ll turn Jason on and within a minute it feels like a weighted blanket. The other day I was feeling really sad and I put on a video of him performing and I started laughing at myself because I calmed down the same way a baby calms down when they hear The Happy Song. I don’t fully know what it is about his music that can quiet my chaotic brain so quickly, but I am so glad I have it. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’m autistic, and Isbell has been my special interest for years. His songwriting works for my brain in a way that most music doesn’t. I can process it, visualize it, live inside it. And when something becomes that embedded in how you regulate, hearing it live isn’t just a concert, it’s something closer to medicine.

Often at the end of a show I get overwhelmed with emotion because I am so grateful that this music exists, that I can go to these shows, and that for one night everything in the outside world goes quiet and it’s just me and the songs.

This show reminded me of that more than most, because my mom was there. I got her into Isbell’s music and it has become something we genuinely bond over. She introduced me to so many artists growing up, so there’s something really special about being able to introduce her to something that means this much to me. Her favorite song is “If We Were Vampires.” When he played it, she held my hand and we sobbed together. She looked at me and said she had been thinking about how she won’t be here for my entire life, and we both completely fell apart.

Moments like that remind me why I keep coming back. Why I can hear the same songs over and over and still feel something new every time. Because they aren’t just songs. They are stories, they are memories, they bring regulation, and they create space to feel things that are hard to feel anywhere else. I am so grateful to live in a world with artists like Jason Isbell, and for music that adds that kind of meaning to life.