My Morning Jacket

The Cubs win.  Jim James shreds.  A night to remember.

The D Man and Stark the Vinyl Shark downed some cheesesteaks and wings as the Cubs handled the Pirates in the wild card playoff.  Then we made our way to the Complex for a night with Louisville's finest rockers, My Morning Jacket, now an American touring institution.  The band recently played an epic, career-spanning set at Red Rocks, and the band's wide-open guitar rock, with flourishes of southern soul, alt-country, and folk rock, is unmistakably their own.

 From fledgling, opening band in a small club all the way to festival headliner in front of 30,000 people, The D Man has seen My Morning Jacket four times.  This time around, the band played in front of a packed indoor venue, which was obviously filled with longtime fans.  MMJ's setlist varies from night to night, and we were treated with some choice cuts.  Opener "Believe," from this year's The Waterfall, bursted with faithful optimism in the face of the unknown.  Back-to-back songs from Z, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, personified the records spacey jams; "It Beats 4 U" and "Wordless Chorus" were early highlights.  A strong rendition of "Circuital" followed.

The band spent 12 minutes simmering and then roaring through "Dondante," the heavy closing track from Z.  Carl Broemel set down his axe for the saxophone, drawing out pain-soaked notes during the song's finale.  James went solo acoustic for "Get the Point," perhaps the most direct but respectful break-up song of all time.  The surprise of the night came with the opening notes of "I Will Sing You Songs," the glorious, reverb-drenched track from 2003's It Still Moves.  It sounded brilliant, and Stark the Vinyl Shark's only regret was that it didn't wander long enough into an extended jam, the sweet spot was so exquisite.

The five-song encore was legit.  "Victory Dance," with its rallying, keyboard war cries, bested the album version by leaps and bounds.  "Compound Fracture," my favorite song from the new record, crackled with a groovy, R&B feel.  "Off the Record" rocked, of course, and "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. II" extended into dark, bass-heavy dreaminess.  Thinking that was a fitting end to the show, I thought to myself that we may have missed out on one of the classic titans from It Still Moves, still my favorite MMJ album.  Much to my delight, the band ripped into "One Big Holiday," and the last hammer dropped.  One of this century's great American rock songs, OBH drilled home a simple truth: we are lucky to have MMJ playing somewhere, night after night.

Mew

My mind turned to theosis at one point during the show.  How is that for a pop concert?  The reaching, the yearning, the potential--five human beings on stage exploring possibilities through sound and movement, engaged in a communal and hopeful artistry that was deeply moving--somehow all of it left me thinking about our eternal destinies.  Jonas Bjerre's impossible falsetto is difficult to describe without using words like heavenly, of course, and it will pierce your heart and turn your cynicism to musical mush.

Rip called Mew one of the five best live shows he has seen.  Rizzo brought up Van Gogh and the under appreciation of artists who do not swim with the current.  The D Man echoed their sentiments, thrilled to have seen such an epic show with about 300 other people.  It was the Danish band's first ever appearance in Salt Lake City, and they all seemed genuinely pleased with the raucous reception.  That said, it is still perplexing to see musicians that accomplished in such an intimate setting.

Mew once referred to themselves as "the world's only indie stadium band."  The show on Friday night proved as much.  They sounded HUGE.  Soaring.  Beautiful.  While Mew have certainly played massive venues in Europe, headlining the Roskilde Festival twice for example, the dream-pop heroes are often relegated to clubs and theaters in the United States.  The result is like seeing U2 in a small venue--it feels both incongruent and amazing.

The band opened with a ripping version of "Witness" from their new album + -.  Then "Special" transitioned into "The Zookeeper's Boy," easily the best falsetto rock song of all time.  "Introducing Palace Players" was potent, as any longtime fan would expect, and "Sometimes Life Isn't Easy" was brilliant, long one of The D Man's favorite deep cuts.  New singles "Satellites" and "Water Slides" were also superb.

Whimsical and wholly original, Mew makes records that defy explanation but hit the pleasure button track after track.  They curb prog-rock's pretensions with gorgeous melodies and an earnestness that makes them the uncoolest cool band on the planet.  They may never play Giants Stadium, but one thing is certain: it would be bigger (and better) than watching an aging Mick Jagger strut around.