CONCORD, Calif. — Don’t doubt someone who’s completely sold on the power of love, redemption and music being able to lift everyone higher. Nashville singer-songwriter and rapper Jelly Roll used his tremendous story of redemption—time behind bars and more than 20 years of toil as an independent artist before becoming one of the biggest up-and-coming artists in rock, country and rap simultaneously—to make a truly spectacular introduction to the Bay Area at Toyota Pavilion.

More than 15,000 packed the amphitheater for the Backroad Baptism Tour, which is a little over its midway point. It was a complete sell-out with bumper to bumper traffic for two miles.

The artist, whose name is Jason DeFord, was born and raised in Nashville. He’s been making music, starting with hip-hop, for more than two decades, selling mixtapes and albums out of his car. He’s been independent for all but the last two of those years. He also dealt and used drugs. He served time for marijuana possession—still illegal in Tennessee—and robbery, and earned a GED at 23 while in jail.

He found a large audience even as an indie artist, but the last two years have been stratospheric as his unique blend of styles and influences connected in a massive way on country radio with “Son of a Sinner,” “Save Me, “Dead Man Walking,” and more recently, “She” and “Need a Favor,” both from June’s Whitsitt Chapel (his seventh LP overall).

The 90-minute performance focused on the new album, as well as 2021’s Ballads of the Broken, some choice older material and some well-placed medleys of covers that helped explain how he found his unique style.

The relatively simple stage design involved the full-figured Jelly Roll and his seven-member band performing in front of a large screen. Before the performance, the screen was made out to look like a church announcement sign, flashing slogans like “Better with the lost than the found,” “You can’t scare me to heaven” and “Hit me with the stones you cast.” But for rocking opener “The Lost,” a huge crown-topped skull appeared. The band quickly shifted gears for rap cut “The Hate Goes On.” Flames shot up from behind Jelly Roll during Southern rocker “Halfway to Hell,” and the band kept the initial pace going with similar-sounding “Creature” and “Dead Man Walking.”

“This is more than a show; this is a revival happening tonight in Concord, California,” Jelly Roll said as an introduction to softer singalong “Son of a Sinner.” “Tonight we’re going to celebrate the year of the underdog [and] everyone who lives between being right and wrong.”

Letting the crowd sing the chorus without him, he removed his black baseball cap to the crowd.

He then introduced his three biggest musical influences with a story of getting his love of country music from his mom, following the story with a quick medley that included Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and Moe Bandy’s and Joe Stampley’s “Honky Town Queen.” Next, he told how his older sister—who was in the building because she wanted to see San Francisco—introduced him to rock bands like Metallica and Lynyrd Skynyrd, followed by a short rendition of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock & Roll.”

Finally, he explained how his older brother introduced him to both gangsta rap and cannabis, which he followed with a medley of Eazy-E’s “Boyz-n-the-Hood,” DMX’s “Ruff Ryder’s Anthem,” Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson” and Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend,” which the audience sang even after the band had stopped. And speaking of the band; the way it was able to hop between not just these very different songs but between the rock, country and hip-hop genres was extremely impressive.

“I wanna get real for a minute,” Jelly Roll said, turning the show in a more serious direction. He then welcomed new fans to his “broken family” and talked about his firm belief in the power of music to change lives. The video screen behind him portrayed a church and his speech was very much a sermon. Jelly’s church clearly has wide doors and lots of room for those who might not think they fit in elsewhere.

“What I personally believe is that heaven has a smoking section and an open bar,” he said, expounding on the lyrics of the following tune, “Smoking Section.” He rapped the verses and sang the chorus with a twang, before lighting up a fat joint, taking a couple of puffs and passing it to his bassist. A couple of songs later, “Same Asshole,” one of his earlier songs, featured rapped verses, a country chorus and a hard rock breakdown.

Sandwiched between them was “She,” a sweet country ballad about the ramifications of drug abuse, with the video screen flashing the crisis number for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 800-662-HELP.

“Big Pharma is fucking us over,” he said in regards to the country’s opioid epidemic. “We gotta come together as a community and stop the cycle.”

A little while later, he again brought up the opioid crisis and pointed out how while not enough is being regulated while pharmaceutical companies get rich, marijuana is over-regulated. That led into “Bottle and Mary Jane,” which bounced along with a jittery bass line. Jelly Roll had a bottle of liquor delivered to him on stage and poured some of it directly into his guitarist’s mouth as he wailed away.

After being joined on stage by openers Three 6 Mafia for a rock rendition of their hit, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” he and the band kicked into country smash “Need a Favor.”

“Ya’ll chose to take an average fat-ass white trash guy and have him make history,” he said afterward about the song topping both the country and rock charts simultaneously. Then it was time for another covers medley, this one highlighted by a strong and faithful take on The Animals’ “The House of the Rising Sun.”

Back to preaching, Jelly again encouraged anyone in the crowd to persevere if they were going through hard times.

“If you’re going through something, I want you to keep on going!” he said. “People can change, things can change. There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror: What’s in front of us is bigger than what’s behind us.”

As the evening was drawing to a close, he was joined on stage by opener (and friend of 20 years), Struggle Jennings, for their song “Fall in the Fall,” which began as a piano ballad but turned hard-edged on the rapped verses. Next, he dedicated a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” to former tour mates Shinedown, as well as Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington, who passed away earlier this year. Singer-songwriter Caitlynne Curtis, a guest of Jennings, joined him to belt out the most powerful vocals on the song.

He rounded things off with the uptempo pop-country song “Nail Me,” which had been listed on the set list as a maybe; so he must have been feeling really good by that point, and finally, “Save Me.”

Jelly Roll thanked the audience again.

“Because of you, I have broken generational curses,” he said.

Memphis rap outfit Three 6 Mafia, who preceded Jelly Roll, had as special of a connection to him as Struggle Jennings. The hip-hop group of Juicy J and DJ Paul signed rapper Lil Wyte (who performed with them in Concord and as they pointed out, was the only artist on their label), and it was Lil White who first signed Jelly to a label deal. They were also instrumental for him as a young rapper growing up in the same state.

With Juicy J wearing an undone straightjacket and muzzle, the two paced the stage in opposite directions, delivering their signature horrorcore, gangsta rap and trap.

The roughly 20-song set included the call-and-response of “Weak Ass Bitch,” the one-two punch of reefer madness “Where’s Da Bud” and “Bin Laden Weed,” and much heavier songs like “Ass & Titties” and “Late Night Tip.”

The crowd didn’t appear to be into the hip-hop pioneers as much as the country-leaning acts (when DJ Paul asked if he could start a mosh pit, one did not start for him), but even the cowboy-hat-wearing crowd seemed to get into the more melodic cuts like “Poppin’ My Collar,” “Doe Boy Fresh,” Juicy J’s “Bandz a Make Her Dance” and “Stay Fly.”

“Sippin on Some Syrup” was also a highlight, with Three 6 Mafia rapping the last verse a cappella.

Like the headliner, Struggle Jennings also combined his country roots—his step-grandfather is Waylon Jennings—with rap. And like Jelly Roll, he’s also spent time behind bars and has his own redemption story.

Clad in black cowboy hat, shirt and jacket with teal accents, he came out spitting grizzled bars with a Southern intonation to hard-hitting and menacing rock by his four-member band for opener “Troubadour of Troubled Souls,” as well as “Monte Carlo.” But the tone shifted dramatically when the fuchsia-haired pedal steel player picked up a fiddle for a cover of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes.”

“When I was sitting in a prison cell and doing some soul searching, I realized that I was the problem,” Jennings said as an introduction to “Savior,” sharing more of his story during the song. His rumbling voice set to the sweet violin-tinged ballad was truly unique.

As she did with Jelly Roll, Caitlynne Curtis provided the vocal fireworks by belting out “God We Need You Now” alongside Jennings’ rapped parts. After keeping the duet going on her song “Cries of the Crusaders,” Jennings leaned into the country with barn-burner “Shoulda Woulda Coulda,” his newest single.

He concluded his performance with “Outlaw Shit,” during which he told his most poignant story yet, about getting out of prison seven years earlier and coming home having to rebuild his life and fight for his children, whom he’d lost to foster care.

“Fall in love with the.journey, fall in love with the obstacles,” he said, focusing in on the story of his daughter, who also lost her mother to addiction, was physically abused and overcame yet by graduating from high school with a 3.9 GPA. The song was punctuated with a blistering guitar solo.

The show’s emcee was Josh Adam Meyers, who also performed a short set of his own with a band in the early evening. The comedian and actor, who from a distance resembled and sounded an awful lot like Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan on “The Walking Dead,” was surprisingly a pretty charismatic musician. The opening set consisted of a 20-minute rendition of the Cranberries’ “Zombie.” The comedy part of the act came when he zeroed in on a handful of concert attendees and ribbed them unceasingly about their appearance and behavior, working the one-way conversation into the melody of the song.

“This song goes out to the old guy with the white beard and his arms crossed. Uncross your arms dude, don’t you know that’s bad posture?” he sang to one man.

And he kept coming back to his favorite fans as he returned twice more between others’ sets, which included his band performing “Livin’ On a Prayer” and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” He even tried to crowd-surf during the latter song.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter. Follow photographer Sean Liming at Instagram.com/S.Liming.