New faces, and familiar ones, among the highlights
Here are some of the best shows we saw Thursday.
Machine Gun Kelly
I wasn’t ready for Machine Gun Kelly. The scope of his popularity had escaped me. So, as I approached the Miller Lite Oasis I was taken aback by the sheer size of the crowd.
MGK’s energy was ferocious from the beginning. Though he’s a hip-hop artist, he definitely took a rock ’n’ roll approach to his show. He brought a live band that was a little too “metal” for my taste and even picked up a guitar himself every few songs.
While MGK was quite the performer, I have to give the highest regard to his fans. They sang every single song, word for word, from beginning to end. — Damon “Jank” Joy, Special to the Journal Sentinel
Jason Isbell
Since spending six years in DriveBy Truckers in the 2000s, Jason Isbell has forged a successful solo career backed by his excellent band of mostly Muscle Shoals musicians known as the 400 Unit.
Standing next to his wife, fiddle player Amanda Shires, he shared smiles during songs like “Anxiety” and “Tupelo” at the BMO Harris Pavilion with Miller Lite Thursday night.
In “Last of My Kind,” Isbell sings about not being happy in a city at night, about nobody who can dance like him, about everybody clapping on one and three. That wasn’t the case Thursday night at Summerfest. Everyone was clapping on two and four.
— Meg Jones, mjones@journalsentinel.com
Walter Trout
It has been awhile since blues guitarist Walter Trout played at Summerfest. Thirty years to be exact.
Back then, Trout backed John Mayall in the Bluesbreakers. On Thursday, he fronted his own band at the BMO Harris Pavilion. He was later joined on stage by his guitarist son.
Trout was in fine form, alternately growling and warbling “I’m back to play the blues for you” in “I’m Back” while playing his ax as if he hadn’t missed a beat. He admitted that he actually missed quite a few beats when he was stricken a few years ago with cirrhosis of the liver and spent months in a hospital before getting a life-saving transplant.
He played numbers from his 2015 album “Battle Scars,” which chronicled his illness and transplant, including “Cold Cold Ground” and “Almost Gone.” And, in what may be a first this year at Summerfest, the guitarist ended his set with a plug for organ donation.
Welcome back, Walter.
— Meg Jones