Live From New York
![Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit at Radio City Music Hall](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC_4211-copy.jpg?w=300)
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit made their Radio City Music Hall debut on Feb. 24. Here, Isbell and the band soundcheck at the hallowed auditorium.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit made their Radio City Music Hall debut on Feb. 24. Here, Isbell and the band soundcheck at the hallowed auditorium.
The view from drummer Chad Gamble’s seat during soundcheck shows an empty Radio City.
400 Unit keyboard player Derry deBorja is a constant presence over Isbell’s left shoulder.
The band’s new bassist Anna Butterss (right) slid seamlessly into their role onstage with the 400 Unit, including guitarist Sadler Vaden.
Drummer Chad Gamble, utility player Will Johnson, guitarist Sadler Vaden, and bassist Anna Butterss take the elevator to the stage ahead of their Radio City debut.
Anna Butterss, Chad Gamble, Jason Isbell, and Derry deBorja gather before showtime.
Isbell and the band chose to open their Radio City show with “When We Were Close,” a track off the new album ‘Weathervanes’ that’s about Isbell’s friendship with the late songwriter Justin Townes Earle.
The first four songs of Isbell’s set list — “When We Were Close,” “Save the World,” “King of Oklahoma,” and “Strawberry Woman” — were all from ‘Weathervanes.’
All six members of the 400 Unit, including Will Johnson behind drummer Chad Gamble, are visible in this photo from the stage at Radio City Music Hall.
Before playing “Alabama Pines,” Isbell said he’d actually been to Radio City before — for a ‘Game of Thrones’ event. He said he remembers thinking then, “I sure would like to make music in that place.”
Isbell’s a native of north Alabama, and the midtown Manhattan crowd made him feel welcome, singing along loudly to “Alabama Pines.”
Isbell is an admitted sneakerhead — here, he and guitarist Sadler Vaden show off the Swoosh.
Isbell and the band are on tour all throughout the spring and summer.
Isbell surveys the crowd at the sold-out Radio City Music Hall.
Isbell caught fans’ attention late this year for a personal upgrade: he had his teeth fixed. “I had bone loss, severe infection and neuralgia, and without the repairs I wasn’t gonna be singing much longer,” he wrote on X.
Isbell is the proud owner of “Red Eye,” a 1959 Les Paul once owned and played by Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King, who had it stolen from him at gunpoint in 1987.
“This Ain’t It,” off ‘Weathervanes,’ has become a guitar duel between Isbell and Vaden at the 400 Unit’s live shows.
The 400 Unit bid the Radio City crowd farewell.
The band move on to a busy slate of shows, including a sold-out headlining show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado.