[ATTENDED: October 10, 2025] My Morning Jacket
A couple of years ago we saw My Morning Jacket at the Met. They played two nights in a row but we only went to one. I’m not going to say the second night was better, but they played a lot of great songs that second night as well. So when they announced two nights again, I grabbed GA tickets (to finally get up close to the band) for both nights.
We greatly enjoyed Balthvs and the fact that we were one person away from the barrier for most of the show.
The lights dimmed and the band came out and they were off, playing Steam Engine. The song is 7 minutes on record and they stretched that thing out with some lengthy soloing and jamming. It went over 15 minutes and the band sounded in great form.
I had thought that they might play all of Z (since they have been touring the album), but they didn’t (which is fine). For this show they played three songs off of it. One of them was It Beats 4U which, amazingly, I had not seen live before.
When we saw them last time, they didn’t play anything from The Waterfall. Tonight they played two songs, the delightful In Its Infancy and, later on, Spring (Among the Living).
My two favorite MMJ albums are Evil Urges and Circuital, so I’m always excited to hear songs from them. They played Circuital, which made me quite happy. I don’t really know their first few records all that well–they’re a little too slow and not very catchy. But the crowd seems to love when they play a deep cut like X-Mas Curtain (this is one of their older songs that I really do like, so I enjoyed hearing it).
Speaking of the crowd… we were in the pit and most of the people around us were VIP purchasers and other die-hards. The guys in the front on the barrier all had long hair and proceeded to headbang through the whole show. It was pretty funny and they made the front of MMJ’s Instagram page the following day.
And we were right in from of Carl Broemel and it was amazing watching him do…everything. He played amazing solos, he played saxophone, he even sang fantastic backing vocals. But it was so cool when he stepped up to the edge of the stage, about 6 feet from us and just wailed on that guitar.
That had been 6 rocking, jamming songs in a row and I was thrilled with the setlist so far. Then it was time to slow things down a bit. They played two songs from The Waterfall Part II. I liked the first Waterfall album but the second one not as much. So I had actually assumed that these two songs (with Still Thinkin) were new.
Throwing in a nice word about bassist Tom Blankenship. He stands there in between Carl and Jim and is cool as anything. He often smiles, he never loses the groove and he was like a steady heartbeat to the band. Meanwhile, drummer Patrick Hallahan is a maniac behind the kit. Sure, he plays quietly (and sometimes uses soft mallets for the cymbals), but when he needs to pound on the drums, he doesn’t hold back.
I hadn’t listened to the new album IS all that much, but I did a few times and I really enjoyed Half a Lifetime with its staccato opening and grooving middle section. Then they slowed things down some with three songs from At Dawn. Honest Man stretched out to 9 minutes. I didn’t mind it as a jam, but it’s a pretty basic blues song for the most part. And Chills, which was the first time they’d played it since 2010 got the crowd going berserk. It’s a pretty deep cut/B-side thing so I didn’t know it.
Quite often, Jim came over and stood near Carl while they jammed together. Quite a few times, both Jim and Carl soloed at the same time–and sounded great together! And usually as a jam was ending they would gather around the drums (like Crazy Horse) and the four of the rocked out while facing each other.
I often felt a little bad for keyboardist Bo Koster who couldn’t leave his post and join the others. I admit that he’s not very noticeable back there, but he is essential to the sound for when Jim and Carl are both soloing, someone needs to keep the melody going. He’s also got some really important piano moments in a lot of the songs like Laylow.
I really enjoyed River Road, a new song that features a lot of harmonics on the guitar–they jammed this one out about 5 minutes more than on the record.
But before they got to Laylow (with its amazing dual guitar solo), they played Touch Me I’m Going to Scream (Part 1). For this song, Jim walked all around the front of the stage holding his hand out to the audience. He didn’t really come over by us all too often, but when he did, he made sure to make eye contact with everyone in the front. And then they played the song that my wife was most excited for, Holdin on to Black Metal. They opened with it last time we saw them and that was incredible. But it was even cooler to be right up near the stage as the band rocked out. It was one of the shorter songs of the night at 4 and a half minutes, but it was fantastic.
They ended the set with two songs from Z, Laylow and Gideon. Although I like Circuital and Evil Urges, Z is the first album that really got me into them, so I was pretty delighted to hear these few songs from the album.
The encore break was a little longer than I expected–not crazy long, though. And soon enough Jim came out with his acoustic guitar. Speaking of acoustic guitars, I was so impressed with the overall sound mixing of this show. Whether its the band or the Met or both to be complimented I don’t know, but I was marveling how clear Jim’s acoustic guitar was even while the rest f the band were rocking out. And when he sang All the Best (the John Prine song) with just him and his acoustic, it sounded fantastic. I didn’t know it was a John Prine song, because it seems like something Jim would have written. The rest of the band came out for Old Sept. Blues, the only song they played from their debut.
They played one more new song Out in the Open and then back to The Waterfall for Spring (one of my favorite songs from that album).
I had no idea how long this show was going to go. When we saw the setlist later on, it said in the bottom 11PM hard curfew. So they clearly weren’t going to push it. But they had started at around 8:20 and it was already after 10:30 when they started what turned out to be the final song of the night, Dancefloors. On the record this fun song is about 5 minutes, but with the lebgthy jamming, they rocked it for a full ten minutes, ending the show at 10:45.
When I went over to someone in the front to try to get a picture of the setlist, the crew threw picks and sticks into the audience and a drumstick bounced off the guy in front of me and hit the ground. But since I can’t bend over very quickly at the moment, he got it before I could. Darn, But aside from that, everything went smoothly that night.
Despite Friday traffic, we arrived in plenty of time to get some merch, get a great spot and even get home at a fairly reasonable time. And the show kicked ass. I left thinking how fantastic it was and also thinking about all of the songs that I guessed they might play the following night.
| October 11, 2025 Met Philly Night 2 | October 10, 2025 Met Philly Night 1 | |
| Highly Suspicious ⊗ (5:07) | Steam Engine ⇔ [2] (16:46) | |
| Off the Record ζ [2] (6:17) | It Beats 4 U ‰ (4:30) | |
| Climbing the Ladder ϖ (3:17) | In Its Infancy (The Waterfall) ψ [2] (5:28) | |
| Love Love Love ♠ (6:05) | Circuital ζ [3] (7:23) | |
| Wordless Chorus ‰ [3] (7:32) | X-Mas Curtain Ö/∴ [2] (6:41) | |
| Beginning From the Ending $ (6:37) | Mahgeetah ⇔ [3] (6:33) | |
| Squid Ink $ (3:45) | Run It ϖ (7:11) | |
| Cobra © [2] (5:20) | Still Thinkin ϖ (5:49) | |
| En La Ceremony ⇔ (live debut) (5:48) | Half a Lifetime $ (3:32) | |
| Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2 ⊗ [3] (8:50) | The Way That He Sings Ö [2] (6:41) | |
| How Could I Know ‰ (5:22) | Honest Man Ö (9:37) | |
| Lemme Know $ (3:22) | Chills Ö (first time since 2010) (5:16) | |
| What a Wonderful Man ‰ (3:14) | River Road $ (8:08) | |
| Everyday Magic $ (6:11) | Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 1 ⊗ (4:35) | |
| One Big Holiday ⇔ [3] (6:58) | Holdin on to Black Metal ζ [2] (4:35) | |
| Wonderful (The Way I Feel) ζ [2] (6:17) | Laylow ‰ [3] (6:15) | |
| Outta My System ζ (3:21) | Gideon ‰ (6:47) | |
| Die for It $ (4:37) | encore | |
| Phone Went West Ö [2] (12:45) | All the Best (John Prine cover) (first time since 2013) (3:40) | |
| encore | Old Sept. Blues ∇ (5:05) | |
| Bermuda Highway Ö (4:48) | Out in the Open $ (4:03) | |
| Picture of You ∇ (6:41) | Spring (Among the Living) ψ [2] (with “Dear Prudence” by The Beatles outro) (9:01) | |
| Evil Urges ⊗ [4] (6:27) | Dancefloors ⇔ (10:49) | |
| Anytime ‰ (5:50) |
| October 27, 2023–Met Philly | November 28, 2015–Beacon |
July 25, 2015–Camden |
| Holdin on to Black Metal ζ | Victory Dance ζ [2] | Off the Record ‰ |
| Wasted ϖ | Compound Fracture ψ [2] | Compound Fracture ψ |
| Feel You ϖ | Evil Urges ⊗ [2] | First Light ζ |
| I’m Amazed ⊗ | Evelyn is Not Real ∇ | Wordless Chorus ‰ |
| O is the One that is Real ≠ | Thin Line ψ [2] | 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 ⇔ [2] | 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 ‰ [2] | Victory Dance ζ |
| encore | Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 2 ⊗ [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 ⇔ [2] | |
| 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)
$ is (2025)
I Just Read About That... 
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