Perfunctory

I'm just not feeling the blogging today. Tired and ready to go to bed. In my stead, enjoy this fine track from My Morning Jacket's discography. (And their new album Circuital is worth a listen too.)

Rain songs

Stray observations from tonight's rainy My Morning Jacket concert with opening act The Preservation Hall Jazz Band...

-Wearing a poncho was like being in my own little polyethylene bubble amid the crowd. It also gave me slightly more space in tight quarters.

-Apropos of nothing, there was a guy in the crowd wearing a full ape mask adorned with a hat with "party animal" on it. That was...weird.

-Bringing along a New Orleans outfit with a rich history might intimidate some groups, but one sign of a band secure with its own abilities is inviting a great opening act. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was a lot of fun and a terrific start to approximately three hours of music.

-Why is My Morning Jacket not one of the biggest bands in America? They kill it live, and their recorded output isn't too shabby either. As I sort of said before, they would have been huge in the '70s.

It still moves

After seeing My Morning Jacket at The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion (otherwise known as The LC) tonight, I feel I have a sense of what it must have been like to see some of the monsters of 70s rock in their day. The Louisville, Kentucky band played for two hours and fifteen minutes with nary a wasted moment. Other than a pair of eyes projected onto the cyclorama, there really wasn't much in the way of a stage production beyond the usual light show. The focus was on cranking out song after song primarily from their last three studio albums.

The one, two, three punch of "Mahgeetah", "Dondante", and "Gideon" alone (links selected for audio fidelity) was just about worth the price of admission, but the knockout blow came with "Lay Low" and easily the longest jamming I've ever witnessed on the instrumental end of the song. (I would guarantee it's longer than the California performance I linked to, but maybe this is one of those situations where perception of time is off.) Granted, I've never been into the kinds of bands that, when given the chance, would go on and on and on and on and on and on... Pretty spectacular to hear and see while not at all coming off like a bunch of guitar wankery. OK, maybe a little bit, but it was awfully cool.

My Morning Jacket made a mighty racket that seemed just right for a cool evening outdoors in the early fall. Is there any need to say more than that?