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Words by Dennis Cook :: Images by Dave Vann
My Morning Jacket :: 11.11.05 :: The Fillmore :: San Francisco, CA
MMJ :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
The forest on stage was a dead giveaway that My Morning Jacket aren't like the other children. This was a rock show that welcomed fairy tales and candy-coated mythology, and all with a good beat you can dance to. MMJ embraces incongruous juxtapositions and make us love them too. They rock heroically, but they also moan with a bracing tenderness that might cause tears to well up. While many bands would be thrilled with the opening slot, they gave it to spoken word artist Saul Williams, who sang about his African people to a sea of buttermilk. MMJ delights in strange pairings and odd intersections. Combined with their considerable talent, this uncurbed delight in exploration marks them as one of today's greats.
Koster and James :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
In each of the half-dozen times I've seen them perform, I've been instantly possessed by the desire to hit the open road. Not to get away but to drive, top down, through the night with their music blasting impolitely. Such is their propulsion and their demeanor. It makes me long for unknown highways of my own, singing along to "Golden" as the sun breaks through the clouds. Like pistons firing, what they do triggers a neuron storm in my head that's positively intoxicating. There's just something about the way Jim James sings and the way the boys play. As Jim once put it, "Why's it so strange when they say that the world's movin' upwards?"
Our ascent began in earnest with "One Big Holiday," which has the same vibe if not character as southern rock epics like The Outlaws' "Green Grass And High Tides" and yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," which MMJ clowned convincingly to in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. The expression "Go big or go home" fluttered into my thoughts as they revved up the instrumental tail section. This one and recent winner "Wordless Chorus" tap into divine energies. It catapults us into a transitory state where we're open to pregnant and open-ended ideas. They make me think of Gabriel and his golden horn, Samson swinging the jawbone of an ass at the Philistines.
MMJ :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
Even more impressive is how they accomplish this in song form, bypassing the usual roadblocks that language frequently throws up when approaching holy things. During the performance, more than one friend commented that they often couldn't understand much of what James was singing but they were still hungry for more. In the case of "Wordless Chorus," the feeling transcends words. It is pure sound that reaches in and squeezes our spirit.
MMJ :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
Via the internet and postcards, the band requested the audience wear "fantasy" clothing. In a note from Jim James, they explained they'd be filming the shows for a DVD, more a movie than a standard concert flick, and it would make them happy if we decked ourselves out as "faeries and wizards and goblins," and "if you have a pumpkin and two mice that you can turn into a stagecoach drawn by horses, you should ride to the show in that and our monkey butler will help you out and into the club." All around were Commedia dell'Arte masks and ruffled shirts, glowing jewelry and face paint, smoking jackets and lacey underthings. It made me think what a drab affair we allow most concert outings to be. I'm guilty of sporting a five o'clock shadow and a Black Crowes t-shirt as my standard issue uniform and instantly regretted not digging through my wardrobe for something with more flair. It's a fine thing that MMJ inspires low impact frivolity like this. We need more occasions for fabulousness.
Carl Broemel :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
The freshest faces in the band, keyboardist Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel, bring a lusty vigor to the older material. Cuts from The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn come off like new men with fresh walking shoes and a fetching haircut. Broemel has an unpredictable brilliance that recalls Radiohead's underrated genius Jonny Greenwood, and Koster's spiky, pretty keys have expanded their tonal palette exponentially. With this pair, it's even clearer that if talent and sheer musicality ruled the charts, MMJ would have been hit makers for years already. As it is, I imagine they're platinum on the Bizarro World Top 40, where they share wine at award ceremonies with a Beach Boys that never lost Brian Wilson (in several regards), a Marvin Gaye that outlived his father, and a Jim Henson that's still making music with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Bizarro World is a fun place.
Broemel and Koster slot in perfectly with SIMPLY ONE OF THE GREATEST RHYTHM SECTIONS OF ALL TIME. Pardon the capitols, but bassist Two-Tone Tommy and drummer Patrick Hallahan don't get nearly enough credit. They're the cradle from which everything is birthed, the foundation that permits their comrades to build so tall. The proof of this is the many times you'd find everyone except the fixed-position Koster huddled around the drum kit, turned away from the crowd, feeding off the low-end surge and then unleashing their own charged howls. At one point, I found myself caught up in Tommy's super-sized shadow on the red-curtained wall. My head obediently nodded in time with his, and as I looked around, I saw that at least a dozen others had been transfixed by the same spell.
MMJ :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
At the Fillmore, MMJ showed they might be the closest thing America has to a homegrown Radiohead. The comparison is a specific one. Each band moves to their own idiosyncratic drum, consciously crafting albums with ambitious intent and, with little of the usual media fanfare, winning hearts and minds without ever pandering. Both are groups that folks tuck close to their breast, allowed an intimacy and import we don't usually offer musicians. Tinged with majesty and not a little swaggering sauciness, MMJ grows like ripples in water. Most amazingly, they accomplish this by simply being true to their muse. Each release has further defined their vision, and their fans have only increased the further into this thing they go. It may not be long before My Morning Jacket begins to fill amphitheatres, which befits music that longs for open skies and a thousand-voice chorus.
MMJ :: 11.11 :: The Fillmore, CA |
As they stated at the start, they are the innovators when most others are imitators. When MMJ says it, there's a bit of tongue-in-cheek to their braggadocio. They're too good-natured, too much fans themselves, to really dis the competition. But their music validates the statement in profound ways. All the fists in the air and spontaneous hoots of "Hell yeah!" testify to their allure. There's something that reaches us in a way most other music doesn't. Maybe it's the warrior's lament of "Run Thru" that grips you, makes you ache for all who are afraid. Maybe it's the climb to the moon in "Anytime" that draws you in. Or maybe, like me, it's the whole shooting match you adore. My Morning Jacket brings the skyward reverie of Handel down to earth for folks that like Maker's Mark. It's folk music for the Gods, and I'm sure, just like the dance floor in San Francisco, they were shuffling with all their might in Olympus on this Friday night.
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