Alison Krauss & Union Station
Sept. 7, 2025
Jacobs Pavilion, Cleveland
Opener: Willie Watson
By Rob McCune
For one night in early September, under a riverside canopy beneath the stars and against a backdrop of city lights, Jacobs Pavilion in Cleveland transformed into “The Arcadia.”
A classic theatre marquee which sparked to life as the sun went down, an old oak box office dressed the stage and a velvety blue curtain set the stage for a dramatic evening of old-fashioned entertainment with Alison Krauss & Union Station.
First, there was Willie Watson, a 45-year-old folksinger out of Watkins Glen, New York, who has been making music for two decades that sounds like it genuinely could have come out of a true cowboy, strumming a guitar astride a noble steed, with dusty boots and a well-worn saddle, more than 10 decades ago.
I can’t imagine anyone more authentically folk than Watson, who in addition to three studio albums played a cowboy (or just himself) in the Western comedy anthology “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.”
With Sami Braman on violin, the duo sang, strummed, sawed and plucked to tunes to make you want to slap a knee, about love and the devil and how things used to be.
Then Alison Krauss and her band Union Station took over the Arcadia, which is also the name of Krauss’s 15th studio album (her seventh with Union Station), and first since 2011’s chart-topping “Paper Airplane.”
Featuring Krauss on fiddle and lead vocals, Jerry Douglas (Dobro, lap steel, vocals), Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals) and Barry Bales (bass, vocals), the band played a stirring mix of old and new songs in a masterclass of bluegrass music.
Krauss and Union Station, between them, have 27 Grammys, and with this new album and tour have made it clear as melted snow that they are far from done.
Rob McCune is Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram, where he shares his concert photography and reviews, as well as clips from his “Every.Thing.After” podcast, with interviews with musicians and bands.
