6/4/15

"Chancing, glancing, so enough mood for romancing
So love dawn can't you see
That you only gotta dance with me."
~Lowdown
My Morning Jacket, At Dawn 

Because friends are cool and summer tours are better, I get to see My Morning Jacket perform in a few hours. What an epic band they truly are, maintaining such a strong presence and popularity despite the labels they've encountered as a jam band for a decade and a half. While I am hardly heading into this concert as a superfan, I'm familiar enough with their aesthetic and discography to know my ears are in store for some fluid guitars, loud swells, classic-rock rhythms and the powerful high range and almost-twang of Jim James.

It's a fortunate coincidence I've been in classic rock and alt-country mode all week. My mind is on forests and trees and lakes and grasses and skies instead of the pavement and highways and sky-high structures around me daily. Summer calls for open-air getaways and I've yet to be able to escape. If I cannot be there myself, it is at least a comfort to run away to music that can make me feel just as pensive or reflective or carefree, or otherwise altogether chill. So many bands do it well but My Morning Jacket is one of the leaders of this tribe, with refreshing American rock that does not bother with the trends of the day, and instead relies on satisfying progressions and melodies, a healthy dose of harmonies and a dash of blues-rock soul. To last this long, in this era, requires timeless chops. How else could they make it 15 years?  This is not a band to be sad to, though they can be back, this is not a band to flaunt to, though I anticipate hispter fashion galore as I roll up in my work clothes.

Should be a treat - and an unexpected one at that. Obviously I hope they play "Bermuda Highway." That line about dreams and the crack of the bed and the wall is an unforgettable metaphor. But their latest LP, "The Watefall," is lush-lush-lush and a bit wordier than their older material, which I totally dig. Regardless of whether I am familiar with the songs or not, I'm looking forward to jaw-dropping guitar playing, and getting lost-lost-lost.



"There is only so many ways that one can
Look at a given situation
And I wish you all the love in this world and beyond."
~Get the Point
My Morning Jacket, Waterfall