‘Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed’ Review: A Great Music Doc That Focuses on the Making of an Album, a Marriage and a Man

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In the four days since announcing U2’s first dates for a limited engagement at the massive new Sphere in Las Vegas, the number of shows has incrementally expanded. The mere five gigs announced on Monday got stretched to a dozen shows as of Wednesday, and now, come Thursday morning, five more were added, to make it 17 concerts going on sale this week. But if you must see this show, don’t sleep on these 17 dates under the assumption that the band will just keep adding more extensions. The extension through Nov. 4 that was announced Thursday could well represent the end of the run, since, in an earlier interview with Variety, the Edge said the band would likely be limited to six weeks in the venue — and that’s just how far these new dates take it.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The guest list for Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday all-star concerts at the Hollywood Bowl has been significantly expanded. Sixteen additional names were announced Wednesday for the already packed two-night lineup, representing a roughly 50% expansion of a bill that was advertised with 30 stars when it first went on sale — and immediately sold out — in January. Newly added stars from the worlds of rock, country and other genres include Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Jack Johnson and fellow Texans George Strait and Gary Clark Jr. Nelson’s sole surviving fellow Highwayman, Kris Kristofferson, has also been appointed to the lineup. The son of one of those Highwaymen, Shooter Jennings, is joining the bill as well. Others freshly named to appear this Saturday or Sunday include Dwight Yoakam, Stephen Stills, Rodney Crowell, Booker T. Jones, Buddy Cannon, Daniel Lanois, Jamey Johnson, Waylon Payne and Lily Meola.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Metallica came in strong on this week’s Billboard 200 with a No. 2 bow for the group’s latest album, “72 Seasons,” which came in almost within sight of the chart’s recently indomitable leader, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time.” Wallen extended his run at No. 1 to seven weeks at a time, and counting, with 166,000 more album-equivalent units added to his tally, while Metallica debuted with 146,000 units. On the Billboard Hot 100, meanwhile, SZA finally landed in the No. 1 spot she’s been circling for many weeks with “Kill Bill.” The song had spent eight weeks at No. 2, then dipped to No. 4 last week, before getting the boost it needed to finally become a chart-topper in this latest frame.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, Kacey Musgraves, Jason Isbell, Maren Morris, Margo Price, Mickey Guyton, Kelsea Ballerini and dozens of other top Nashville musicians are calling for the Tennessee General Assembly to pass “common sense gun safety legislation” before lawmakers end their session a few days from now, according to a report in the Tennessean. (A complete list of signees is below.) The letter calls for extreme risk protection laws and legislation strengthening requirements around secure storage of firearms. The letter was drafted after of the deadly Covenant School shooting last month, in which three adults and three nine-year-old children were killed. It was the 19 th shooting at a school or university in 2023 alone — one of hundreds of mass shootings in a country with a government that, largely due to Republican obstruction, refuses to pass more-thorough gun-control laws.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The LA Phil has announced the full summer season for Hollywood Bowl’s sister venue across the gorge, the Ford, with a typically eclectic and cross-cultural lineup that includes Mac DeMarco, Lucinda Williams, Jorge Drexler, the Milk Carton Kids, Darren Criss, Arooj Aftab, Meredith Monk, José James, a kids’ show by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a dance project from Serpentwithfeet and many more attractions. The smaller-sized amphitheater is one of the most prized venues for musicians to play in Los Angeles, although the Phil’s emphasis in its four months of annual shows there is far less on commercial acts than in maintaining intriguing blend of all possible arts, with jazz, Americana and Latin and global music definitely getting a leg up on pop in the programming.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival had an official focus, it was on the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros., from the opening night premiere selection of a restoration of “Rio Bravo” to a celebration of the 50th anniversary of “The Exorcist.” Almost equal in emphasis, though, by virtue of the guests brought in, was a celebration of the ingenues-turned-leading-ladies of the 1960s, who now represent the elder guard of a Hollywood golden age — Angie Dickinson, Ann-Margret and Shirley Jones. Dickinson had the highest profile of any star at the festival, being the belle of the ball at the Thursday screening of “Rio Bravo” in the big house at the TCL Chinese Theatres, where most of the screenings were held. But there was just as much outpouring of affection for Ann-Margret, who turned up for a Q&A (and birthday cake) following “Bye Bye Birdie” on Saturday, and Jones, who was joined by her son Shaun Cassidy and a slew of grandchildren after a showing of 1962’s “The Music Man” as the festival neared its end Sunday.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Eric Clapton announced Monday that his recurring Crossroads Guitar Festival will take place in Los Angeles this fall, with a roster of 41 guest musicians or bands set to take the stage across two nights at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles Sept. 23-24. Musicians due to perform one or both nights include Santana, the War on Drugs, the John Mayer Trio, ZZ Top, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., H.E.R., Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, Vince Gill, Stephen Stills, Jimmy Vaughan, Robbie Robertson, the Del McCoury Band and Joe Bonamassa. Others announced include John McLaughlin, Albert Lee, Doyle Bramhall II, Keb’ Mo’, Roger McGuinn, Robert Randolph, Jakob Dylan, Sierra Hull, Marcus King, Eric Gales, Sonny Landreth, Pedro Martins, James Bullard, Andy Fairweather Low, Samantha Fish, Ariel Posen, Ben Haggard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, the Bros. Landreth, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Gustavo Satnaolalla, Danial Santiago and Bradley Walker.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Variety asked the members of Boygenius in an interview earlier this month about the setlists for their upcoming shows, they made it clear — no solo material, just band stuff, because that’s sufficient to fill festival-length sets anyway. On top of that, perhaps unspoken is the idea that keeping to Boygenius selections helps keep everything democratic, which would become just a little tougher if suddenly “Kyoto” earned the supergroup’s loudest roar out on the road each night. But the trio is doing some headlining shows this spring and summer, outside of festival dates. Do they really have enough in their arsenal from 2018’s initial EP and the full album that just came out to make a full show feel like a full meal?

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic To say that Robbie Fulks has been one of the best singer-songwriters in American roots music over the last quarter-century would be correct, and maybe a little reductive, too; he’s one of the best writers in America, period. It might be tempting to append the word “unsung,” since Fulks’ regular touring since the late ’90s has usually found him playing sub-SoFi rooms — like Hotel Cafe, where he’ll be appearing May 20.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country star Tim McGraw announced Thursday that he is entering into a partnership with Shareability, a social content studio that specializes in “viral moments,” to start Down Home, a new Nashville-based media, entertainment and marketing company. According to the announcement, Down Home will be “dedicated to connecting McGraw’s country music audience with Hollywood and brands by producing film, TV and digital media that focuses on relatable stories that capture the essence and spirit of everyday Americans.” No titles or specific projects were announced as part of the unveiling, but the new company is said to have two scripted series in development with Skydance Media, with the intention of following up with feature film and animation projects. In a statement, Joel Bergvall, Down Home’s head of film and television, said, “People want stories that move them, and that starts with characters they can relate to. We’re focused on underdogs, unlikely heroes, and people striving for their sense of family, community, and belonging.”

Here’s the elevator pitch: follow wildly successful actors and podcasters Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes on a celebrity-filled North American tour.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Amazon has come on board this month’s Stagecoach Festival in California to provide a livestream of the country music gathering. Live action from the April 28-30 festival in Indio will be streamed on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. It marks the second year that the festival will be extensively streamed, albeit the first involving Amazon. In 2022, Stagecoach livestreamed most of the main attractions on its own YouTube channel. In some years prior to that, Yahoo had had exclusive rights to stream select artists’ sets. Coverage from the festival will begin at 3 p.m. each of the festival’s three days. Stagecoach and Amazon did not immediately reveal how many or which sets will be streamed from the festival; a press release promised that performances from the Mane Stage will be seen.

When HBO hosted a special screening of Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, the intimate documentary about the singer-songwriter’s personal and creative journey during the making of his 2020 album Reunions, seemingly met with unanimous approval. But as applause and whistles rippled over the closing credits, one person sitting in the center of the theater was thinking, “I don’t think I want to watch it again for at least a decade.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic God only knows it was a matter of time until the Recording Academy picked the Beach Boys as the recipient of one of its annual all-star tributes, and the group’s legacy isn’t done any shame with “A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys,” airing Sunday night at 8 ET/PT on CBS (and for on-demand streaming on Paramount+). No wrong harmonies are struck, literally or figurative, in a two-hour show that starts out feeling a little bit by-the-numbers but eventually lands on a series of knockout covers fit for a Wilson. Are you surprised that Brandi Carlile would be the highlight of a tribute special? Then come out from under your rock and do stay up late enough to catch both of her performances on the show, since she is one of a handful of artists granted both solo and duet slots in the setlist. First in the running order, she has a version of “In Your Room” that can’t really be considered “solo,” since she’s joined by bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth for an arrangement that has their modern mastery of three-part harmony paying homage to the Boys’ sub-incarnation as a balladic vocal trio. You hope for something transformative in tribute performances like these, and you know you’re getting the moment Carlile lends her perfectly subtle vibrato to the “roo-oo-oom” and “a-frai-ai-aid” to some of the opening lines. She and the Hanseroths make the bridge feel you’re doing a gentle waltz while enveloping yourself in a self-assuring hug, before the falsetto ending spoils that warmth with a chill down your spine. Yeah, it’s that good.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A touring production of the stage version of “The Bodyguard” was brought to a halt and canceled in Manchester, England on Friday night after patrons would not stop singing along with the musical’s songs, leading to house lights coming up during the climactic number “I Will Always Love You.” Two women were forcibly pulled out of the theater by security, and several police cars arrived to oversee the evacuation of the theater after what patrons on social media described as “fights in the aisles” and even “a mini-riot.” According to news reports out of Manchester and tweets from those inside the Palace Theatre, the show — based on the hit 1992 film — had already been temporarily halted once during the first act because of the disruptive audience sing-alongs, but was resumed. Later, though, with only about 10 minutes to go before the end, it was put on pause again while its star, Pussycat Dolls member Melody Thornton, attempted to sing the climactic song made famous in the movie by Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You,” over the sound of semi-tuneless howling coming from audience members. Thornton’s mic was cut mid-song, the house lights came up and offenders were evicted — struggling against being pulled out by their shoulders, in video footage captured by attendees — and the show was officially called off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The verdicts on the new Broadway musical-comedy “Shucked” are in, and the critics have asked you to lend them your ears — so to speak — as they’ve cobbled together their reactions to the possible sleeper hit. (Sorry, but once you’ve seen the production, it may take you six months or longer to stop speaking in puns.) Variety’s critic wrote that “with its exuberance, heart and non-stop yucks, ‘Shucked’ is the surprise delight of the Broadway season.” The New York Post’s notice trumpeted it as “Broadways’s best and funniest new musical.” Time Out said the show leaves theatergoers “gorged to satisfaction on a big, tasty bag of Broadway puff.” Entertainment Weekly wrote that “its refreshing embrace of diversity and unapologetically corny sincerity can definitely put a smile on your face.” Even one of the minority that was harder on it, the New York Times’ Jesse Green, begrudgingly admitted of the parade of laughs: “forced into submission,,” he wrote, “you eventually give in.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Renée Zellweger has her first co-starring role in a music video, appearing in “Two Steps,” the visual accompaniment for a new song by C M Talkington, a singer-songwriter who is only on his second album. At first glance, at least for those who don’t know their movie credits too avidly, this might seem like a case of a well-known actor doing a favor to help gain some visibility for an up-and-comer making his baby steps into a musical career. And that part is not untrue, exactly. But the backstory to their jointly making this video actually goes back three decades, and involves both parties possibly owing each other one. Because before he started making records, Talkington was (and still is) known as a filmmaker — and it was him that gave Zellweger her first big break, by going to the wall with a production company to cast her in the 1994 feature “Love and a .45,” where the indie film world first met and fell in love with her.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus spent the last few years of interviews generally demurring on when their group, Boygenius, would ever be collectively super again. There’s been a little bit of a Boygenius time-out, of course, since the trio’s fairly spontaneous debut EP came out in 2018 and the release of their first full album as a collective, “The Record,” on March 31. But it hasn’t been for a lack of thought and effort going on behind the scenes, as the waiting world has now learned. As Bridgers says in an interview with Variety, “We realized the other day that we’ve been making this record for longer than we haven’t been, as friends,” since she dates its origin point to the week after she issued her “Punisher” album in 2020.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A couple of members of a fresh generation of country music — Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson — came away as the top victors at Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards, broadcast live from Austin for the first time. But the biggest winners may have been CMT and CBS, putting the three-hour telecast on the map as a show packed with enough performance firepower that it does merit having made the move from a cable platform to major broadcast premiere as of last year. However much the official winners may delight a core country crowd happy to see young radio and streaming favorites get rewarded, the big draw for the CBS audience was likely a series of collaborations between country stars and their pop or rock counterparts, as has been the custom for years on the rival CMA Awards. Most notable were the all-female collabs that had Carly Pearce dueting with Gwen Stefani on No Doubt’s “Just a Girl,” or Alanis Morissette trading lines with a slate of young female artists that included Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Morgan Wade and Madeline Edwards. The all-star teamings spread to those who presented, too, with Megan Thee Stallion providing the most enthusiastic introduction imaginable for “my new besty,” Shania Twain.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A short film that actor-turned-director Kristen Stewart made with the group Boygenius got an official Hollywood sendoff Thursday night at the El Rey Theatre, with a film premiere that also doubled as a launch party for the indie-rock trio’s new album, “The Record.” Stewart did not participate in the Q&A that Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus did with members of the press and public after the screening, but she stepped out to introduce the short film, which is essentially an interlocking combination of music videos for three songs from the new album: “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry” and “True Blue.” The imagery is sometimes sentimental, sometimes bracing and vivid. Bridgers sings “Emily I’m Sorry” in front of a monster truck rally. Palms are cut for a blood oath. And there is some lip-locking through copious blue paint. The framing device is sweet, though, beginning with one band member sleeping fitfully in bed and waking up at the end embraced in a group cuddle.