I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 27, 2023] My Morning Jacket

When I told my son that we were going to see My Morning Jacket he said, “you’ve seen them a lot.”  And I kind of think that too.  But this was only our third time seeing them and the last two times were in 2015.

This tour was sort of announced as a twenty year anniversary tour of their album It Still Moves.  They were playing the album–but not at all locations.

And not at our location.  MMJ were playing two nights at the Met.  Ideally we would have gone to both.  But both nights were scheduled for the weekend of my son’s college Homecoming weekend, so we didn’t think we’d go to either.  But he was cool with us not visiting him on Friday so I grabbed tickets for this show.

Of course, seeing the setlists from both nights, I would have preferred the second night, but only slightly and only because they played a song that I really wanted to hear (“Wordless Chorus”) and that my wife really wanted to hear (“One Big Holiday”).

However, both nights were a fascinating mix of fan favorites and deep cuts.  So on our night I got to hear a couple other favorite songs, too.  So no complaints about our night at all.   Well, actually a couple of complaints about the losers who shared the box with us and who talked a lot through the show and who almost got into a fight at one point.  VIP indeed.

But I have no complaints about the song selection.  Having them open with “Holding on to Black Metal” was awesome–a real favorite for me. And, (and this will be noted a bunch), one I hadn’t seen them play before.  I love having unique shows although honestly if it’s been 8 years, does it really matter?

They seemed to fall into a pattern of playing a song I loved followed by one or two that I didn’t really know. I assumed a lot of the songs I didn’t know were from The Waterfall II, and album I didn’t really listen to.  But it turns out I also had completely forgotten about their self-titled album from 2021.

So I didn’t really know “Wasted,” but I did know (and really like) “Feel You.”   All of the songs sounded amazing, by the way.  Jim James’ voice is in great form and the guitars play off of each other perfectly.

They followed that up with the uplifting “I’m Amazed,” which I’m surprised I hadn’t seen before.   My favorite MMJ period is Z, Evil Urges and Circuital, so anything from this era is excellent to me.

They followed that up with “O is the One that is Real” a crazy deep cut that I’d never heard before.  When I saw MMJ at The Beacon Theater, it was part of their four-night run.  And my night, the last night, was full of deep cuts–a show that the fans were thrilled by, but which I wasn’t (well, the show was great, but I’d have picked a very different set list).

They followed it with “Evil Urges,”  I was really excited to hear it, realizing only now that it’s one of two songs that they’ve played at all three shows.

I don’t know their first album really at all, so I didn’t know “War Begun.”

Then they played two songs from Moves, the gorgeous “Golden” which sounded amazing and “I Will Sing You Songs” which is a slow, mellow song that slowed things down in a nice way.

They followed that with “Victory Dance,” another song that I love which is the other one I’ve seen at all three shows.

Up next was a song from the newest album “Least Expected,” which I didn’t recognize.  It struck me about half way through the set that the songs I knew the least were the ones that they stretched out and jammed on the longest.  Not sure if that’s true and it doesn’t really matter per se, but it was funny that the songs I was most happy to hear were kind of played and done.  Like “Remnants,” a song they haven’t played in five years–I feel like it’s rare that a genuine bust out is a song I really like, but “Remnants” is one of them.

I would have loved a bunch of songs from Z (I guess that will be the 2025 tour) but if I was only going to get two (and it wasn’t “Wordless Chorus”) then “Deodante” would be my choice.  The slow buildup was fantastic the lights slow lifting, the band slowly building up the song behind the voices.  It was transcendent.

The band left and Jim called Madi Diaz on stage.  They apparently sing a different song every night and tonight they sang the lovely “I Will Be There When You Die,” a song that I didn’t know but which worked great as duet.

They dipped way into the back catalog for the next two songs.  “If All Else Fails” sounded very different than the folk song on the record (which I didn’t really know).  They followed it with the strangest choice of the night–“Xmas Curtain.”  I know (now) that this is on one of their albums proper, but I know it from an occasionally listened to Christmas EP. It was odd to sort of know this song but not quite realize what it was.

They followed it with the other Z song “Lay Low,” which I tend to think is okay, until I remember the absolutely killer instrumental section at the end of the song.  They ended the set with “Easy Morning Rebel,” a song I don’t think all that much about but which was a fun and rocking classic rock and roll sounding song.  Carl Broemel even played a sax solo.  This jam went on a little long for me, as it was already getting quite late.  But the crowd was wildly into it.

There was an encore break and I hoped the jerks in our box would leave, but no such luck.

It was a pretty length break and then Jim came back out and sang the beautiful “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).”  I think about this song a lot but I never thought about them playing it and it was a terrific surprise.

They followed it with “Circuital” another song  that I love, so the encore was a major jolt of excitement for me.  I figured there would be four songs so we had two more slots for each of the songs we wanted.

I was a but bummed that the third song was one I didn’t know, “Lucky to Be Alive,” a pretty song from their latest album.

I hoped we’d get the intro to “One Big Holiday” as the song faded, but instead we got “Mahgeetah.”  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  After being briefly disappointed that it wasn’t “Holiday,” I quickly turned it around and loved getting to hear this epic song again.

So as I think back on this show I realize that even though the second night got the two songs I most wanted to hear,  I think our setlist was more suited to me overall.   Indeed, we got 13 songs that I really really like and they got nine.

• What a Wonderful Man
• One Big Holiday
• Thank You Too (with Madi Diaz, I would have loved to have this song instead)
• Gideon
• Run Thru (I like this better than Mahgeetah, actually, hard to believe they’re on the same record).
  Their encore was absolutely killer though
• Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 1
• Off the Record
• Wordless Chorus
• Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2

The only real solution would be to go to both nights, though.  However, I would not have been able to do both nights though.  We didn’t get home until crazy late on Saturday morning and I was exhausted all day.  I was asleep by 10:30 and they played for an hour after that!  So I’m happy with what we got and I was happy to have a special VIP night out with my rocking wife.

October 27, 2023–Met Philly	November 28, 2015–Beacon	July 25, 2015–Camden
Holdin on to Black Metal ζ	Victory Dance ζ	Off the Record ζ
Wasted ϖ	Compound Fracture ψ	Compound Fracture ψ
Feel You ϖ	Evil Urges ⊗	First Light ζ
I’m Amazed ⊗	Evelyn is Not Real ∇	Wordless Chorus ‰
O is the One that is Real ≠	Thin Line ψ	Evil Urges ⊗
Evil Urges ⊗ [3]	They Ran ∇	In Its Infancy (The Waterfall) ψ
War Begun ∇	Hillside Song ψ	Master Plan ⇔
Golden ⇔	Death is the Easy Way Ö	Lay Low ‰
I Will Sing You Songs ⇔	I Think I’m Going to Hell ∇	Spring (Among the Living) ψ
Victory Dance ζ [3]	Sooner ©	Dondante ‰
Least Expected ♠	The Way That He Sings Ö	Tropics (Erase Traces) ψ
Remnants ⊗ [tour debut, first played since 2018]	Aluminum Park ⊗	Thin Line ψ
Dondante ‰ [2]	Master Plan ⇔	Circuital ζ
I Will Be There When You Die ∇ (With Madi Diaz and a tag from “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”)	I Love You All the Time [Eagles of Death Metal cover]	Phone Went West Ö
If All Else Fails ∇	Smokin’ from Shootin’ ⊗	Mahgeetah ⇔
X-Mas Curtain Ö/∴	Steam Engine ⇔	encore
Lay Low ‰ [2]	encore	Believe (Nobody Knows) ψ
Easy Morning Rebel ⇔	Wordless Chorus ‰	Victory Dance ζ
encore	Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2 ⊗	Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2 ⊗
Wonderful (The Way I Feel) ζ	Cobra ©	One Big Holiday ⇔
Circuital ζ [2]	Run Thru ⇔
Lucky to Be Alive  ♠	One Big Holiday ⇔
Mahgeetah ⇔ [2]

∇ The Tennessee Fire (1999)
∴ Does Christmas Fiasco Style (2000)
Ö At Dawn (2001)
© Chocolate and Ice EP (2002)
≠ split single with Songs:Ohia (2002)
⇔ It Still Moves (2003)
‰ Z (2005)
⊗ Evil Urges (2008)
ζ Circuital (2011)
ψ The Waterfall (2015)
ϖ The Waterfall II (2018)
♠ My Morning Jacket (2021)