Review: Jelly Roll shows his healing touch in arena concert
By Scott Mervis / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jelly Roll came to town Saturday night and, to the delight of a packed PPG Paints Arena, so did the demons that dance around in his head.
They populate the songs of the big man from Antioch, Tenn., who was on a bad track before a career in hip-hop and country set him right.
Jelly Roll, aka Jason DeFord, hit Pittsburgh on the Beautifully Broken Tour just a week before dropping a 10th album with that title. It follows 2021’s breakout “Ballads of the Broken” — coming nearly 20 years after his first mixtape — and last year’s country-chart-topping “Whitsitt Chapel.”
Jelly Roll, dressed all in black, made his entrance to the B stage through the crowd like a UFC fighter. And under a burning house frame, he delivered “I Am Not Okay,” the newest in a line of singles probing a psyche in repair.
When he was done, he declared, “Tonight will be a night of healing! Tonight will be a night of therapy! Tonight will be a night of love!”
He also teased it would be one of the best concerts we’ll see this year. If not that, it was certainly a moving one.
Jelly Roll took the action to the main stage, adorned with a broken skull, with a lit and loud nine-piece band featuring three backup singer-dancers. Together, they crashed through “Halfway to Hell.”
Before leading a spirited singalong of the song that brought him, “Son of a Sinner,” Jelly Roll stopped to respectfully sign a prosthetic leg passed up to him on the ramp. He returned it in a touching moment.
He stopped the song to holler, “If this is your first Jelly Roll concert, I’d like to welcome you to our dysfunctional family!”
Again and again, he went back to the themes of recovery and redemption.
Talking about how his mama listened to Waylon, Willie and all the outlaws, he brought Alexandra Kay (who opened along with Warren Zeiders) back out to salute Toby Keith with “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and dip into the Shania Twain catalog with “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
Kay sang that one, but DeFord joked about seeing the guys in the crowd joining in.
The mid-set cover section also included Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” and “Lonely Road” with Machine Gun Kelly and its John Denver detour.
For those who have been with him for a while, or have checked out the back catalog, he wrapped some of his older songs into a medley.
Jelly Roll displayed the sweet, vulnerable side of his voice on “She,” a song about addiction that he interrupted to note his testimony before Congress about the perils of fentanyl.
“Bottle and Mary Jane,” carrying on the theme, was his finest blend of rap and country, capped by a fiery metal solo. He took it to church, complete with shouts of “Hail Mary!” on the soulful “Need a Favor.”
“Real music, for real people, with real problems,” he declared.
By the time he wrapped it up on the B stage with “Save Me,” under a cleansing rain, the big-hearted Jelly Roll seemed to check those boxes of healing, therapy and love, while making it a pretty rockin’ Saturday night party.
Jelly Roll set list
I Am Not Okay
Halfway to Hell
Get By
Burning
Son of a Sinner
Should’ve Been a Cowboy (Toby Keith cover) (with Alexandra Kay)
Man! I Feel Like a Woman! (Shania Twain cover) (with Alexandra Kay)
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) (Green Day cover)
Lonely Road
Creature / Same A—hole / Fall in the Fall / Wild Ones
She
Liar
Bottle and Mary Jane
Need a Favor
Smoking Section
Heart of Stone
Save Me