Ravinia 2024 Issue 6

PAVILION 6:45 PM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2024 JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT with special guest ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO Alejandro Escovedo –Intermission– Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit A MESSAGE FROM MIDTOWN ATHLETIC CLUBS At Midtown Athletic Clubs, we believe active, social people live happier, healthier lives. That involves more than just fitness; it’s also about having a picnic on the Lawn at Ravinia with friends. For us at Midtown, being active is a way of life, and that includes being active in the community. In addition to Ravinia, we sponsor programs like the Tennis Opportunity Program in Chicago, ensuring talented young tennis players from underprivileged communities get tennis coaching and academic tutoring so they in turn get college scholarships; Mindstrong in Montreal, the largest mental-health fundraiser in the province, raising over $1 million per year; and the Tour de Cure in Rochester, NY, a massive bike ride for diabetes research. In addition to that support, our biggest goal is ending genetic retinal disease, a form of which impacts our founder’s grandson. With support from Midtown, the Foundation Fighting Blindness has funded research and doctors focused on curing Lebers Congenital Amaurosis and other retinal diseases. To date, over 50 children have been cured. They see their parents, siblings, friends, and the world for the first time! This cure is the first and only gene therapy of any kind ever successfully performed on humans. JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT Jason Isbell records land like a decoder ring in the ears and hearts of his audience, a soundtrack to his world and, magically, to theirs too. His latest release, 2023’s Weathervanes , carries the same revelatory power. Here Isbell is a storytell- er at the peak of his craft, observing his fellow wanderers, looking inside and trying to under- stand, reducing a universe to four minutes at a time—a small enough package to name the fear and then strip it away, making sense of how the numbers add up different after a certain age, or a certain amount of scars. Weathervanes is a collection of grown-up songs: Songs about adult love, change, the danger of nostalgia, and the in- terrogation of myths, also about cruelty, regret, and redemption. Some are for crying alone in the car; others are for singing along with thou- sands of strangers in a big summer pavilion. Is- bell’s indefatigable 400 Unit is the rolling thun- der along for the ride, naturally, having earned a place in the rock and roll cosmos alongside the greatest backing ensembles, as powerful and es- sential to the storytelling as The E Street Band or The Wailers. From 2009’s eponymous album and 2011’s Here We Rest to the chart-toppers The Nashville Sound (2017) and Reunions (2020), The 400 Unit is the prism through wish Isbell’s art shines: with the band behind him, Isbell re- leases an energy that only exists in their pres- ence. Solo shows are a complicated juggle—on stage with The 400 Unit, Isbell can be a guitar hero, a conductor, a smiling fan of the majesty of his bandmates. The roots of Weathervanes reach back to pandemic isolation and Isbell’s time acting in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon —there were a lot of guitars around and a lot of time to think. Watching Scorsese work, Isbell saw the relationship between a clear vision and its execution, but also how the great director sought out and used his co-workers’ opinions, reinvigorating the sense of collaboration that emerged in the studio. Jason Isbell first played Ravinia in 2014 and is making his first return to the festival RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 67 CATHERINEPOWELL