Venue:
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London
Date: 11/06/2026
Jason and the band were straight into it. They didn’t take time to warm up, but were in top gear from the first minute.
They opened with 24 Frames. Initially the sound was off and muddy, but I salute the soundman – by the time the song ended he had things clear and balanced and there weren’t any sound problems for the rest of the night. Though it wasn’t a problem free night (see The Audience, below).
He played songs covering the breadth of his whole career, with the Weathervanes album the best represented. There were only two songs from Foxes in The Snow.
Decoration Day came quite early in the set and was played just as you’d expect, until he ended his slide solo, then dispensed with the slide and played a long straight guitar solo. Just when you think the song is winding up it’s over to Sadler Vaden who in turn takes an extended solo. I thought it was all great stuff, my wife not so much.
Towards the end, when they performed This Ain’t It, Jason and Sadler got together for an extended interplay and I’d swear for a time their bodies were invested with the spirits of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts – though which was which I couldn’t say, but to my ears it was pure Allman Brothers.
I also noticed in couple of songs that Sadler has adopted Townshend style windmilling. Nothing good nor bad, but I don’t recall seeing him do this before.
It was also Chad Gamble’s birthday and Jason sang a weird rendition of Happy Birthday, which he explained had been delivered in the style of The Bad Seeds.
New bassist Anna Butters fitted in well, playing upright bass on the acoustic numbers to add a bit on tonal colour.
I was surprised at the inclusion of Cover Me Up and If We Were Vampires, given those are songs he had written for Amanda. I guess he can divorce himself from the original sentiment and simply perform them to an audience.
It was a good night, but circumstances beyond Jason’s control prevented it being a great one.
The audience:
Years ago @Chiz wrote a review about Ryan Adams and The Fuckwits.
Well the Fuckwits were out in force last night at The Albert Hall.
Finished your beer in the middle of a song? Well just go and get one. Don’t worry about disturbing people and interrupting their enjoyment. Back to your seat, same thing.
You’re going for a piss? I’ll come with you. Come on get out of my way, I’m desperate. Pisser 1 gets back before Pisser 2? Could he wait until his mate arrived? No chance. Then Pisser 2 returned a minute later.
There’s the guy a few rows in front of us with his baseball cap on the wrong way round. Then it’s lift it, ruffle hair, turn it round. A couple of minutes later it needs to be turned back. I’ll lock my hands behind my head, spread my arms so people behind can’t see. Cap needs to be turned again. And again.
Great an acoustic song. That gives us a chance to talk. What’s happening in the World Cup? Get your phone out and have a look at the match.
What is annoying is that years ago at The Albert Hall, if you left your seat, stewards would hold people at the door and not allow them return until a song had ended. That policy reduced the level of annoyance, but they don’t do that anymore.
When one Fuckwit in our row returned mid song, as he pushed past I said “Why can’t you wait until the end of a song?”. His response was to just stand there and block my view, until I pushed him towards his seat.
The majority are very well behaved – but there is this significant minority who just don’t give a damn about anyone else’s enjoyment. Not a moment’s thought about how their behaviour affects others.
It made me think..
Jason Isbell is one of the great songwriters currently working He can miss personal favourites like The Life You Chose and Overseas out of the set, but he’s got so much other great material I don’t feel in the least bit shortchanged.
On the other hand what punishments could be contrived and doled out to The Fuckwits? Just stop, that way madness lies.
Aah yes. Similar annoyance at a Waterboys gig down here.
Btw it was 5 fuckwits and Crowded House if memory serves.
Good review, Carl. I understand completely – it’s like you’re describing the last biggish gig I attended – Lloyd Cole in the Olympia, Dublin a few years ago. Exact same type of shit. I have given up on large / medium size gigs, just going to Dolan’s in Limerick or the Róisín Dubh in Galway where the audiences are smaller and are mostly there for the music…
Unfortunately I had a very occasional gig crew of old school mates, about 5 of us, who I regrettably just had to stop going with for these very reasons. It really did become embarrassing…the constant need for more drinks and the subsequent piss breaks were annoying even to me, and I’ve known them all for 45+ years. It was the chat too-often completely unrelated stuff as well. I brought it up a couple of times, (outside of the gigs I should add!) but was told I was just being anti-social. Fair enough. I prefer smaller gigs with my wife anyway.
Good review Carl and sorry you had the show somewhat spoiled by thoughtless others. I went to the Manchester show on Monday at the Bridgewater Hall taking my youngest, the timing was good as they’d just finished exams so I could treat them to Manchester in the sunshine, a pre-gig meal and then a top notch concert plus vinyl from the merch stall. They were impressed with support act Will Johnson who to my ear reminded me a bit of Nebraska era Springsteen. We did comment on being glad to have been sat where we were as those a block over were up and down throughout the concert. Some of that may have been due to age related toilet requirements though,
Doing a quick comparison of setlists between Manchester and London there look to be around six songs difference between the nights out of 21/22 songs that’s not a bad ratio, we got one you’d have liked and vice versa. Funny you should mention the Allman Brothers, I thought the same thing during This Ain’t it as well.
They walk among us….many people nowadays seem unable to differentiate how they behave in their own living room with how they behave at a gig, theatre, cinema.
https://inews.co.uk/culture/theatre-audiences-behaviour-since-covid-pandemic-fights-takeaways-1787819
Lockdown (I think that is the cause) has also ruined the bar experience, for me, anyway. You don’t have to queue: if they are any good behind the bar they’ll know who’s next*. Thank fuck I don’t go to pubs – and fewer gigs – any more.
*Narrator: they are usually NOT any good and having a queue removes the need for them to be.
I’m instinctively opposed to ordering by app in a pub (grumble grumble) but Mrs. T and I were in a busy pub in Lincoln and having finished dinner, fancied another drink. Unable to face the mêlée I tried the app and to my complete amazement two drinks appeared within a few minutes. Blimey.
The free for all at bars in British pubs is not something I miss at all. Give me a seat and an eager server coming over to take my order all day long
Definitely.
Saw Jason and the 400 Unit at the Hammersmith Apollo end of last year and, good as it was, I didn’t feel the need to see them again this soon. The audience was mush better behaved. But talking of crap audience members at the Albert:
Went to see Emmylou Harris’ last UK show at the RAH and the ushers were stopping people from rejoining the audience during songs, which I was grateful for. I was less grateful for the corpulent individual taking up the adjoining armrest plus some of my space, giving me ‘evils’ when I brushed a bit of this excess timber, and humming along to the stuff they knew. Plus a slew of ‘refreshed’ folks coming in and out the whole way through. I think my companion and I were the only people who sat through the whole show without feeling the need for another drink or another piss. The person directly opposite on the other side of the hall was filming the whole thing, shining a little bright light all the time. Turns our Chrissie Hynde had words with THAT entitled dick, not that he seemed to care:
https://people.com/chrissie-hynde-wants-fans-to-stop-using-phones-at-concert-11989680
I have shared your discomfort myself: https://theafterword.co.uk/explosions-in-the-sky-2/
I saw a Pretenders gig in Liverpool, where the venue was plastered with signs in Chrissie’s name imploring audience members to enjoy the concert, live in the moment and not take photos. It was well worded, clearly a request from the artist herself, and as a result so far as I could see everyone in the audience respected it.
Scared not to…
That’s certainly true of audiences at Van Morrison gigs where a similar message is out out….
I saw him at the Hammersmith Odeon (as it will always be) a few years ago and he didn’t come on until 9.20. We were sriously pissed off as we had to go before the end and missed Decoration Day. Evidently there was a technical problem but there didn’t seem to be much activity trying to fix it.
I was moaning about exactly this at Kraftwerk in Brighton the other week. It sounds as if exactly the same fuckwits were there, doing exactly the same thing. No one seems to care anymore, get expensive seats down the front but talk, laugh, drink (not inconsiderable) body weight in overpriced beer in plastic cups, heave to the loos and back, watch football on phone, loudly drunkenly whoop and shout throughout during The Model – total bunch of w?*$%@£%s
Recently I saw the Waterboys. The Irish come out in force for them. Looking at the audience with quite a few sporting knitted jumpers it suggests they are. no longer regular gig goers. Here I will proffer a generalisation that the Irish like a drink, he says whisky in non typing hand. I say this because from after 2 -3 songs there was constant movement of people going for a piss. No stamina! I assume after relieving themselves, coming out, and spotting an empty bar they came back in reloaded. Being older and having less bladder stamina this cycle continued with ever increasing frequency. Oh then there was the 40 ish woman in front of us who climbed onto the stage and could not be moved by the 1 security guy who then got a bollocking from Mike Scott. But that’s another story.