Monday, August 18, 2008

MMJ Concert


On Saturday I had the opportunity to go see My Morning Jacket in their hometown of Louisville. I expected a big turnout as they hadn't played there in a while (they usually do a Thanksgiving day show, but due to recording Evil Urges couldn't), a big turnout was an understatement. The show was at Waterfront park, which if you aren't familiar is just a huge park in front of the river. The weather was perfect, blue skies but not hot. Thousands of people lined up to get in, a friend and I took our time getting in. To our surprise there was no opener, just MMJ. For 3 hours they played and put on the best fucking show I have seen. I have seen them about 4 times and each time they get better and better. The peak for me was that they played some songs that to my knowledge haven't been played live before. Cobra (from their EP Chocolate and Ice) was one of these songs. Jim was in full force, his voice hit all the notes while his body was draped in a black cape. The highlight song for me was Run Thru (if anyone has seen them play this song live, you know what I am talking about). What I liked most about the concert was just seeing the whole city come out and support their best export since Muhammad Ali. The band grew up around these people, they played their first shows with these people, and are now beautifully progressing the live music scene with these people. I highly recommend anyone to see them and not be moved. A terrific live recording of this concert can be found on The Steam Engine's blog.

4 comments:

Jason said...

Run Thru was massive, as was the whole show. These guys are so good its too much sometimes.

Henry said...

I loved "Where To Begin" and when they started into Cobra, I about had a heart attack.

I don't know how anyone couldn't love this band.

Hatfielder said...

This show was incredible! Best live band on the planet, no contest.

Run Thru was indeed awesome, as it always is.

Note they have played Cobra many times live, but it is still very rare on the whole. And they played 3 parts of it which is about half, whereas many times they only play 1 or 2 (it is a 24-minute song).

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, you missed the opening act. The Louisville Leopard Percussionists opened the show. They are a collection of 45 seven to twelve year old kids from the Louisville area that for lack of a better term, fucking rock.
There is an HBO documentary about the Leopards that came out not to long ago. These kids are amazing. Check out some of their videos here:
http://louisvilleleopardpercussionists.com/pages/video.htm

The Leopards are a true reflection of how vibrant the music and art scene has become in Louisville and it showed how much MMJ really cares about its hometown by having them open in front of 10,000 fans.

Amazing show all around. Sorry you missed the Leopards. Did you at least get see our mayor on stage screaming?

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