Ever been to a show where the band played covers of both Black Sabbath and John Denver? Not ironic covers, mind you. Good, honest renditions of two disparate classics of the early ‘70s, when protest music was an actual thing.
Welcome to the world of Jesse Welles. Welles, the 33-year-old singer-songwriter from Ozark, Arkansas, has been releasing sharp rock & roll music since he was 20. But he became a viral sensation when he took aim at the second Trump administration.
If Steve Bannon was intent on engaging in muzzle velocity – hitting the news cycle with too many stories for the public to react – Welles has seemed intent on matching the speed.
His viral videos on headline-grabbing subjects come fast and furious, and the 1,200 fans who were at his second consecutive sold-out show at Washington, DC’s 9:30 Club on Monday night got the full effect. 29 songs in an hour-and-fifty-minute set. Welles isn’t exactly a reticent performer, but he does not talk a lot between songs. His songs have too much to say to waste time with idle chatter.
Jesse Welles striking nerves in the nation’s capital
Want an example of just how quick Welles is? He had been opening his sets on this tour with his most viral of hits, “Join ICE” ….
“They got a sign-on bonus of fifty grand
They’re in need of you needing to feel like a man
Join ICE.”
Then, on February 28, the bombing of Iran commenced. At his show that very night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Welles had a new opener … “Sometimes You Bomb Iran.”
“Government contractors salivating
There’s real good money in liberation
Same playbook as 2003
Looks familiar to you
Looks familiar to me.”
Love him or hate him, Jesse Welles doesn’t pull punches.
As you might expect, the crowd in DC loved him – chanting his name when calling him back for an encore and generally singing along to almost every song.
Welles opened the show by himself, with just his guitar and harmonica. With his shaggy hair and raspy voice he is often referred to as his generation’s Bob Dylan. But he sounded more like John Prine on “United Health,” which tackles corporate greed in the health care industry.
“Join ICE” shifted back to third in the batting order. Before bringing out his band, he also tackled Jeffrey Epstein (“The List”), cancer (“Cancer”), the dangers of corporate whistle-blowing (“Whistle Boeing”), class inequality (“Poor”), and life in a Walmart world (“Walmart”) …
“I saw a 104-year-old woman
Bolted to a register countin’ change
Her manager was ten years old
With a smartphone for a brain…”
And that was just the prelude.
It can be hard to remember in the flood of witty, current events protest, that Welles began life as a rocker. Once he brings the other four members of his band onstage – during a rousing coda to “Poor,” complete with the sudden appearance of a massive American flag projected behind him and onto the audience – the rock and roll part of the show kicks off.
“Philanthropist” allows guitarist Adam Meisterhans to run wild for a bit. The original release features Billy Strings on guitar. Then Jesse reminds everyone that he can shred pretty well himself on his acoustic with a rousing version of “Red.” He and Meisterhans trade off on “God, Abraham & Xanax,” before getting to the first cover of the evening.
Sabbath’s “Paranoid” may seem like an odd choice, but the band does it justice, settling nicely into the middle of the hardest rocking part of the night. It is followed by the closest Welles comes to jam band status with “War is a God” and “Masks Off.”
He closes out the middle portion of the show with cover number two – CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.”
When Welles returns for an encore -- (once again by himself) -- he enters Springsteen territory. He doesn’t just play a couple of hits. He plays nine more songs, including his cute, profound nursery rhyme sing-alongs “Bugs” and “Turtles.”
There’s a requisite Dylan cover – “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” (one of the Nobel Laureate’s shortest and least wordy songs) as well as Welles’ original “Gilgamesh,” which sounds more like Dylan than the actual cover.
On “Let it Be Me,” Jesse sings “I do what John Denver tells me.” Then he follows it with his final cover – Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which turns into a full-blown sing-along.
The band returns for a few final numbers before Jesse is again alone on stage for one of his “early” hits, “War Isn’t Murder,” from all the way back in 2024.
Kentucky singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman opened the show with her five-piece band, playing bluesy shuffles like “Work Until I Die” and “The Way I Talk.” She does a lovely, assured version of perhaps her best-known romantic ballad, “Space and Time,” simply accompanied by John Calvin Abney on piano. Goodman also joins Welles to take a verse in the Dylan cover.
That American flag that bursts onto the scene in the middle of Welles' set isn't just a striking visual. It's a reminder that protest music in a democracy serves an essential part of the ongoing conversation. And it comes at a crucial moment, when the media landscape is being rapidly restructured. In other words, enjoy Jesse Welles now, while you still can.
Welles continues his current tour heading north to Philadelphia and Boston, before taking a left turn and circling the country. He concludes back home in Arkansas in late March.