After raising the bar for Southern country rockers and Nashville-based songwriters over the past two decades, Jason Isbell has also now heightened expectations for getting your name on the wall of Minnesota's most famous music venue.
The Grammy-winning Americana music star and his long-entrenched band the 400 Unit took the stage at First Avenue on Saturday a few hours after a star with their name on it was unveiled on the Minneapolis rock hall's iconic wall of fame.
Isbell and the band didn't have to play the gig to get the star, but they did. Likewise, they could have turned in a looser, wilder, saucier performance upon returning to the rock club amid a tour of grander theaters and amphitheaters. But they didn't.
Instead, they delivered one of their most refined sets yet in the Twin Cities, one far more tender and soulful than it was raucous, though with "Super 8" and "24 Frames" on the setlist, it certainly did rock hard at times.
Many of the high points of the two-hour performance — announced with less than three weeks' notice and sold out in minutes — made First Ave feel like an intimate, ornate theater more than a rugged, old punk-rock bar.
It takes a lot of power to turn that room into a quiet, captivated place when it's packed. This happened several times Saturday starting with a mid-show pairing of "The Last of My Kind" and "Traveling Alone." The former showcased Isbell's knack for writing empathetically about troubled characters. The latter demonstrated his talent for exposing his own woes.
"Traveling Alone" was also one of a handful of tracks plucked off Isbell's breakthrough 2013 record "Southeastern" — the one that raised his star value to bigger venues than First Avenue.
"Traveling Alone" and another "Southeastern" song, "Cover Me Up" — also a pin-drop moment in the show — both served as reminders of Isbell's triumphant battle for sobriety, which played out during his decade-plus of regularly gigging at First Ave, going back to his mid-2000s tours of duty in the Drive-By Truckers.