My Morning Jacket - Bank of America Pavilion 9/6/08

My Morning Jacket
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Bank of America Pavilion, Boston MA

For a few days leading up to the show there was a constant effort on catching the weather. A hurricane was rolling up the east coast, and although it wouldn't be nearly as bad as what the southern states would get, there would be wind and rain and general "concern". A local venue even moved a Jimmy Buffet show up to a 3pm start time.

A final call before leaving my home was greeted by a bubbly ticket office clerk "Yes, the show is on".

Arriving at the venue it was just easier to go settle in to my seat. Dim secured these sweet seats and all told we were four rows back off to the left(facing the stage). We were a little over too far, but the closeness made up for it all.

The show was billed as "An evening with" and the band made it a point to let fans know that the time on the ticket was show time (ie. no opening act). About 7:45 (15 minutes later than the ticket) the lights went down and the band came out on stage.

Many music sites, and magazines have sung the praises for the bands live shows. Some have even given the nod as a top 10 live band. It was the end of this leg of the tour and the band had made waves by playing a FOUR hour set at Bonaroo a few months back.

We were ready, the audience roared and the band waved and began with "Mahgeetah" from the "It Still Moves" record. What would unfold over the next 1 hour and 55 minutes was sort of a roller coaster a times, but the band was relentless. Lead singer Jim James was in fine voice. He as a vocal range that is rare for a "rock band" all the while he takes the lead vocal duties. (he was on the opposite side of the stage from us). Jim would rotate through an extensive guitar inventory. He'd rock out on his flying V then switch over to an acoustic. At one point he even played a Rickenbacker bass. A few songs he'd begin (or end) the track in a long cape and just sing rather than add additional guitars.

Drummer Patrick Hallahan was real solid and keyboardist Bo Koster added a lot of layers to the music.

The front line of "Two Tone" Tommy on bass, who, like James, is the only original member played off well with guitarist Carl Broemel. Carl was busy as well, going from a slide guitar, to saxophone and back to guitar.

The set list was balanced enough (at least for me.. message boards are abuzz with the lack of set list change ups) but the band leaves it all out on stage.

The band has five full length albums, which may or may not be a lot of records to some people, but they played close to two hours with hardly a hello. James did say "hi" about 30 minutes in and then thanked us for braving the potential weather issues. That was about it. I had it marked to 1 hr 55 for the main set then an additional 30 minutes for the encore. There are bands touring today (that I like mind you) that have more records but are so set in the 90 minute set time frame, that this was refreshing. The band left it out there, yet some folks are sort of wishy-washy on it.

I said to Dim, that so many bands need to take note of this..it is okay to ditch the opening band and unload your music for more than 90 minutes. The surprising thing was the ticket was under $40.00 and you had "this much" music.

Overall this fan was very pleased. The music was great, the rain sort of held off just enough. It was money well spent and the band has further solidified their legacy (at least with me) as a top notch live band.

The set list (thanks to the msg board for this)
mahgeetah
anytime
off the record
evil urges
touch me pt.1
way he sings
two halves
golden
thank you too
im amazed
evelyn
sec walkin
phone
aluminum
Look at you (straight into)
dondante
gideon
lay low
smokin
touch me pt.2

-encore-
wordless
highly
cobra
run thru
one big

Boston.com review here

There are a bunch of great images here. This person takes some amazing pictures.

Few other links etc.

The bands official site
The band on myspace
A ripping appearance on Conan a few years ago. here