Friday, November 11, 2005

Live Music Review: My Morning Jacket

Last night was the My Morning Jacket concert at the Henry Fonda Theatre. I've seen them a couple of times before (Avalon and Austin City Limits festival). I've also seen Jim James perform with M. Ward (good) and Conor Oberst (terrible) and I saw him take part in the Gram Parsons tribute show at Universal. The crowd last night was definitely the frattiest. Lots of button up shirts - kind of what I imagine a Dave Matthews concert must look like. As my friend TTTMNS pointed out, I didn't even know that fanbase existed in Los Angeles.

They started off strongly with two songs from the new album. Jim's voice sounded great. He was a little hoarse on KCRW in the morning, but got it together for the show. I was really enjoying myself except for one problem - a total gaylord frat boy dancing and bumping into me. This guy was dancing in the exaggerated way that black comedians in the 1980s danced to make fun of the way white people dance. Completely ridiculous. Luckily he moved out of my range after a few songs.

They made it through pretty much all of the new album and played a bunch of their better older songs ("Run Thru," "Dancefloors," "Golden," "One Big Holiday"). During the hard rockin' songs the drummer and bassist tossed their hair around like Metallica. I think Jim had his shoes on the whole time. There were some too-slow moments, but overall they sounded great and made good choices. If you can tolerate their audience I recommend seeing them in your town.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think you're being a little hard on people who wear button down shirts, my friend.