Turnpike Troubadours, Jason Isbell Make For Dream Concert Pairing in Oklahoma City

by Julian Spivey

Turnpike Troubadours and Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit have without any doubt been the two artists I’ve listened to the most over the last dozen years since I became acquainted with their music. So, the chance to get to see the two acts perform live together was truly the stuff dreams are made of. So, when it was announced the two would be performing together for two nights only in Oklahoma City, Okla. last fall I knew I had to attend one of the shows. The dream came true on Saturday, January 20 at the Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City.

To sweeten the evening even more, the opener for the shows was West Virginian singer-songwriter Charles Wesley Godwin, who has released three albums thus far in his career and seems destined to break out big on his own. He’s an artist I’ve had tickets to see twice in Little Rock, closer to my home, but COVID-19 wiped out the first show and the second show was canceled without a reason ever given.

Godwin began his set around 6:40 p.m. with “Cue Country Roads,” a track off his most recent album Family Ties, which was released in September of last year. The album is a tribute to Godwin’s loved ones and how he wishes he could spend more time with them but the traveling life of a musician takes him away more than he’d like. Godwin would perform five songs of the new album, which was one of my favorites of 2023.

The performances of “Family Ties” and “All Again,” my two favorite tracks on the album, were among the highlights of his set and when he hits that first “strike me down” line in “Family Ties” you could just feel him capture the still filling in Paycom Center crowd. He would also play “Another Leaf” and his cover of the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” as any good West Virginian would off the album. The performance of ‘Country Roads,’ which turned into a sing-along with the audience, was the final performance of his nine-song set.

A couple of my favorite performances of Godwin’s set was his stellar cover of Chris Knight’s “The Jealous Kind,” which he debuted on a live EP Live from the Church last year and became one of my most played songs of the year, and the terrific “Hardwood Floors,” which was on his 2019 debut album Seneca and instantly became one of my favorites on that album from the first time I heard it that year.

It felt like a lot of people in the audience didn’t know Godwin at the time his set began, which is somewhat surprising to me because you’d think if this many people loved the Turnpike Troubadours they’d be familiar with similar artists but I could tell his all-out performance and his incredibly talented band the Allegheny High captured their attention to the point where they likely won’t ever forget his name.

I had been a bit worried about Isbell’s performance and whether or not he’d even be able to ahead of the show as he had to cancel a couple of shows a few days before his OKC shows due to illness. When he performed night one of the OKC stand on Friday night my fears were assuaged but when I heard him struggle to hit some of the notes on his opening song, “Save the World,” I leaned over to my wife Aprille and said, “I hope he’s not going to hurt himself.”

If there are three things Isbell is most known for it’s 1) his amazing songwriting 2) his talented guitar work and 3) his wonderful voice. His voice was not at peak performance from the illness, at least at the beginning of the show. But, honestly, this was only noticeable on a few songs throughout his set and, for some reason, mostly on the new stuff off his Weathervanes album, which he released last year.

Isbell is one of the artists I’ve seen most in my adult life and I try to see him nearly every time he releases a new album and was looking forward to whatever tracks he played off Weathervanes. I was surprised by how early in the set he broke out “King of Oklahoma,” in front of the Oklahoman audience, but enjoyed what I ranked as the No. 1 Americana or Country Music Song of 2023 on this website. He also performed “Strawberry Woman,” “Cast Iron Skillet” and one of my favorite rockers on the album “This Ain’t It.”

Isbell has been my favorite singer-songwriter of the last decade-plus so whatever he chose to perform on Saturday night was going to be among my favorites of his repertoire but I couldn’t have imagined just how great it was going to be.

“Alabama Pines” is my favorite Isbell song and has been ever since I heard it for the first time, probably in late 2011 after it won Song of the Year at the Americana Awards. It was the song that introduced me to Isbell and I’ll always be grateful for that. But it’s a song, that while I may not have experienced similar things to the narrator of it, has always hit me deep in my soul and I’ve always felt a kinship to it. Isbell performed the song the very first time I saw him live in 2013 and I’m not sure I’ve heard him play it live the many times I’ve seen him since. So, to finally hear my favorite song live again after more than a decade was a blissful concert moment for me.

Isbell always seems to play at least one of his songs from his days in the Southern Rock band Drive-By Truckers in his sets and lately, when I’ve seen him that song had been “Never Gonna Change,” off the Truckers’ 2004 album The Dirty South. That’s a great song, but I’ve really been wanting to hear him do “Decoration Day” again, which I’d probably only seen him do live once, as well. And, on Saturday night Isbell tore the house down with a roaring version of it.

Had Isbell only played those two songs and walked off the stage I’d likely have still wound up with a smile on my face.

This was the first time I’d gotten to see the newly configured 400 Unit – though not 100 percent complete with guitarist Sadler Vaden (who I’ve seen with the band many times) away on paternity leave. Longtime bassist Jimbo Hart recently departed the band and has been replaced by Anna Butterss and multi-instrumentalist Will Johnson has been added to the band. Both musicians did a kickass job on Saturday night, as did guitarist Audley Freed, who has been filling in while Vaden is away. Drummer Chad Gamble and keyboard/accordion extraordinaire Derry DeBorja are still holding it down for the oldies in the group.

Among the other fantastic performances in Isbell’s set on Saturday night were fan favorites like “Super 8,” “Stockholm,” “Last of My Kind,” “If We Were Vampires” and “Cover Me Up,” which he ended his set with. Another great surprise thrown in the mix was “Speed Trap Town,” one of the standouts on 2015’s Something More Than Free.

Isbell was considered a “co-headliner” for the evening, but let’s face it the show was in the Turnpike Troubadours’ home state so they got the longer setlist of the two, but as far as a shorter Isbell set goes this was a pretty perfect one. 
​

The Turnpike Troubadours took the stage around 9:30 p.m. to uproarious applause from the home-state crowd.

The band, which reunited in 2022 after a multiple-year hiatus and released its first album in six years last August, pretty much sticks to what I call “the greatest hits” setlist. This isn’t a problem because I love all of these songs so much but it was rather shocking how few of the songs from their latest album A Cat in the Rain they’ve been playing on tour recently, including at the home shows over the weekend. The band only performed three songs from that album on Saturday night – “Brought Me,” “Mean Old Sun” and “Chipping Mill” – and did so all in unison late in the show (songs No. 14-16 in the set). I understand if the band thinks playing more new songs might turn off some of the crowd – and it was quite dismaying to see some take this opportunity to use the restroom or buy more beer – but I think much of the fan base would love to hear the new stuff.

The band doesn’t surprise me much with what they choose to play sticking to mostly the same songs but there were at least a couple of lovely surprises in the set on Saturday night and they came back-to-back. The only live Turnpike debut for me as a fan that wasn’t from the new album was “Unrung,” which is a terrific standout from their 2017 release A Long Way from Your Heart, and then straight into “The Mercury,” which is my favorite track off the group’s 2015 self-titled album, and one I don’t think they play live enough. “The Mercury” is about as raucous as the band gets and I love it.

Diamonds & Gasoline, from 2010, wasn’t the band’s debut album but it kind of is for many of us as the true debut Bossier City from 2007 isn’t in print and didn’t have much of an impact. This album is the one that is still my favorite Turnpike album and even though I just called on the band to perform more new stuff I do love that they feature so much of this album in their live sets. It’s still the album that sees the most performances live from their repertoire, with seven of its tracks – “7&7,” “Every Girl,” “Shreveport,” “Whole Damn Town,” “Kansas City Southern,” “Long Hot Summer Day” and the title track – all being performed on Saturday night. I love that the band’s vocalist and primary songwriter Felker got the chance to do “Diamonds & Gasoline” solo with just a bit of accompaniment by Hank Early. It’s such a lovely song and a terrific showcase for Felker.

Bassist R.C. Edwards, who’s the band’s other songwriter, always gets his chance to shine on vocals once a show too and along with Kyle Nix on fiddle and Ryan Engleman on guitar performed “For the Sake (When It Comes to Loving You,” which he said he’d written for his wife and doesn’t appear has been recorded yet either by the Troubadours or by Edwards’ other project RC & the Ambers.

It would simply take too long to rattle off every little moment and song from the Turnpike set that I loved but the crowd seemed to love the performances of “The Bird Hunters” and the cover of John Hartford’s “Long Hot Summer Day.” A few more of my favorites personally were “Good Lord Lorrie” and “Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead,” which are my favorite tracks off the band’s 2012 release Goodbye Normal Street, as well as “Pay No Rent,” one of my favorites of A Long Way from Your Heart.

All in all, Saturday night at the Paycom Center was truly one of those magical concerts for me as a music lover and a moment I didn’t expect to ever happen where I’d be able to see Turnpike Troubadours and Isbell & the 400 Unit together. It’s one I’m probably going to be talking about for years to come.