My Morning Jacket Dust Off Rarities For Beacon Opener

Coming into last night’s first of four My Morning Jacket shows at the Beacon Theatre in NYC, every song was on the table. Jim James had told the Village Voice, “Every show will be completely different. It’s exciting to give the big fans a chance to hear songs they maybe never have. I also think we’re going to be able to play each song off of all our records.” MMJ certainly set the pace at Tuesday’s opener by loading the setlist with rarities.

The four shows at the Beacon brings to a close perhaps the busiest year in terms of live performances for the Louisville rockers. More than 70 shows into The Waterfall Tour MMJ continues to dig deep as they busted out “Remnants” for the first time since 2010 in Philadelphia last week and “Nashville To Kentucky” for the first time since 2012 on Friday night in Boston. What bust outs were in store for Night One of the Beacon run? Eleven songs in Jim led the group through “Just Because I Do” off At Dawn for the first time since 2010 and later they kicked off a four-song encore with the return of Z rarity “Into The Woods” after three years on the shelf. You may recall that “Into The Woods” was the song Jim James told JamBase’s Andrew Bruss was in the “doghouse,” but it finally made it out last night.

“Just Because I Do” and “Into The Woods” weren’t the only rarities to make it into Tuesday’s setlist as the band also played “Nashville To Kentucky,” “The Bear,” “Old Sept. Blues” and “I Will Be There When You Die,” among other back catalog gems. Those hoping for “the hits” were hopefully satiated by “Golden,” “Dondante,” “What A Wonderful Man” and “Gideon” as MMJ saved many of their best known songs for later in the run. My Morning Jacket returns to the Beacon Theatre tonight.

What video of “Just Because I Do” thanks to Dave DelSonno: