Photos and Review by Stephen Bloch
I have always said there is no such thing as a bad piece of pizza and it’s impossible to pick a favorite child (I only have one, so that’s a moot point). I think the same can be said for a My Morning Jacket show. With my almost 20 years of experience seeing them, dating back to June 2005 at Bonnaroo, I’ve encountered countless iterations of setlists, albums they are touring for, venues, and crowds. Every show has been great but some just stand out as special. In the past week, I’ve been lucky enough to catch two shows in different states, on different weekends, with pretty different experiences.
On Saturday April 12, Dallas’s Toyota Music Factory played host to the first of two shows. This is a big space with a personality that left something to be desired. Let’s just leave it at that. The band made lemonade with the lemons they were given and played their hearts out. Standouts from this show included the beautiful Jim James solo track “Here in Spirt” followed by an early entry of “Mahgeetah”. The show included a heavy dose of material from their stellar 2025 release IS. “Holding on to Black Metal” was blistering and led into “River Road” off of IS with Aussie rocker Grace Cummings joining in. James and Cummings have harmonies that complement each other so well. Cummings earned many new fans from that performance alone. Equally as memorable was their duet of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon”. If Cummings was a regular opener for My Morning Jacket, this would certainly become a staple.
Ok, now onto the whole pie. My Morning Jacket has been playing Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater since 2006 and it’s clearly one of their favorite venues. Set right on the Milwaukee River, I’m thinking they love it because it just feels like home. It also seems to have a lot to do with how The Pabst Theater Group treats them. Every show has included a shoutout to their hosts. I can attest that they are the absolute best. This show had a buzz about it. The pit was spilling over into the halls, the balcony was packed, and there was Springtime optimism in the air. From the opening note, this show had the makings of something truly memorable.
The terms bust out and rarities are often thrown around a lot by concert denizens. That definitely applies to this show but there were also many twists and turns that kept people charged. One track that has been notably absent since My Morning Jacket’s festival OBH has been “Run Thru” off of their 2003 release It Still Moves. Cross that off, times two. They opened the show with it, then went into “Run It” off of The Waterfall II and then back into it again. 20 minutes of bliss. One of my fellow photog buds said he wished he got a pic of my face during the opening notes. I can only imagine what I looked like. From there, it was a smorgasbord of their entire catalog save The Tennessee Fire, as well as some killer covers including Jim’s own “State of the Art”, Velvet Underground’s “I Found a Reason”, and AC/DC’s “Ride On”. Grace Cummings again joined in on “River Road/Ride On”.
This show can only be characterized as unconstrained. The song choice and order, instrumentation, lighting and sound were all so different than anything encountered prior. My Morning Jacket is a band that keeps refining itself without any need to reinvent itself. At every show I see friends that are entering their 2nd decade of fandom as well as new fans who are just entering high school. They defy convention and their appeal is as broad as any band. They have something for everyone. Their shows are like pizzas with all the toppings and the combination just seems to work. Good thing there isn’t a pineapple and ham topping on this pie.
