Midway through last night’s packed show at the Lincoln Theatre, Jason Isbell asked the crowd if anyone read the weekly paper: “They didn’t like me at all. They didn’t think it’d be a good show. I think it’s been a good show. I think they’re full of shit.”
That would be a reference to this week’s Hearing Aid, in which Indy music editor Grayson Currin took Isbell to task for recording “so much of the same sullen sincerity” on his solo albums, despite penning a handful of brilliant songs over the past several years. (Listen to one such song, and read the Indy interview with Isbell, here.)
But Isbell was just warming up: “Let’s all drink a beer to overcoming the weekly paper,” he said, before launching into “Never Gonna Change,” a song he wrote for the Drive-by Truckers.
We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.
Ouch. Consider it our own private “Ballad of a Thin Man,” a big middle finger from Isbell, to us.
Show review coming soon.
