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It was a dark and stormy night….wait – wrong story. Well, it did get dark, but tropical storm Hanna really didn’t blow into town until most of the way through MY MORNING JACKET’s set at the waterfront setting in Boston. When a jam band announces that their show is going to be ‘an evening with,’ sometimes that’s a good indication to bring enough food and water to last a few days, and the impending hurricane meant that staples were in short supply, but the weather cooperated for the most part. Though they did plow their way through ~150 minutes or so, MMJ is certainly edging away from the stigma that the jam band brand bestows. Sure, there was a decent amount of white hippie twirling going on in the aisles, and the amount of pot smoke emanating from the audience seemed about on par with the massive amounts of chemical smoke being pumped out on stage, but given the new direction of Evil Urges, leader JIM JAMES is certainly looking at new horizons. Most southern-based jam bands don’t have the likes of soulstress ERYKAH BADU amble on stage for a duet, as what happened when they covered her “Tyrone” in Dallas, and she stepped right on stage to deliver the honeyed vocals.
Anyway, this wasn’t Dallas, and the only guest stage appearances made were the stuffed bears, bearing Red Sox jerseys, arms extended up in a victorious pose. The band further enamored the locals by starting the show with arguably their best known song, “Mahgeetah,” a lovely start the evening with lyrics tailor-made (“Are you ready to go?”). As jams go, this was like thick black currant; gooey, sweet, invigorating with just right balance of tartness, the bent guitar notes gently slathered. “I’m Amazed” brought a bar-room chugger sound, like a less ill-tempered DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS without the nasty Jack Daniels hangover or the brass knuckles ready for some cranial creasing. The tropical humid air seemingly brought with it their calypso/reggae songs, and after the dramatic cape-bearing swoops and leaps that Jim led on “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream (pt 1),” the show hit the shoals…I can’t say that Margaritaville is anywhere I’d like to travel, and while MMJ doesn’t get as boring as Mr Buffet, songs like “Thank You Too” and “Phone Went West” meant it was a good opportunity to hit the restroom, get another beer, and walk around the grounds to check on the storm progress.
Then the winds shifted, and the hurricane did appear. Not in a meteorological fashion, but what the men on stage unleashed. “Dondante” is what did it…the guitar clouds massed, the keening vocal swirled, and the onslaught hit. This is the band at their finest, where Jim and CARL BROEMEL flick the switch on their Les Pauls for that ‘70s NEIL YOUNG tone and tear a hole in sky. Carl’s sax solo as the fog swirled was icing…immense track, surely the highlight of the set. Combined with the solar plexus hits of closers “Run Thru” (including a very lysergic heavy strobe section during the drum/instrumental section) and the galloping “One Big Holiday” really sealed the deal…all the hair whipping and stage running that Jim did was validated in those two songs. Their newer direction (the soft AM pop/soul radio sound) can’t come close to the brawny rockers with which they wisely chose to wrap up the evening.
more photos available on my site
