James Vincent McMorrow w/ Moors at First Avenue (13 Nov 2014)

Moor (with James Vincent McMorrow)

Starting the evening was Los Angeles' Moors, playing some tracks form their recently released self-titled EP via Haven Sounds.
The duo features producer HH and emceed/rap are by Keith Stanfield. Stanfield sometime will get too emotion especially on "Asphyxiated" and a song about the murder of his friend, but with the sadness and anger, they were really happy to be on tour and seeing the different cities.

Stanfield also mentioned that he was from south California and only started to really see the world when he got involved in acting in some films (young Snoop Dogg in Straight Outta Compton and civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in the Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic Selma). Those roles inspired his songs, particularly "Smoke".

Highlight of Moors' set was the finale, when James Vincent McMorrow joined them on stage and sang "Cavalier".

Irish singer/songwriter James Vincent McMorrow was last in Minneapolis in 2011, and he sold out the Cedar Cultural Center. This time, he's happy to play at the historic First Avenue, as the venue was featured in Prince's Purple Rain, a movie and album that McMorrow wrote was "an important record in my life."

Turnout to the show was very impressive, especially for such a bitterly cold evening. Even McMorrow was amazed at how cold it was, "It's crazy warm everywhere else… but it's negative ten, no negative one hundred, here!" He's regretting that he didn't bring any warm clothes.

Songs on his set were taken from his two albums, the debut Early in the Morning and sophomore Post Tropical, but did throw his Steve Winwood cover of "Higher Love". McMorrow's version is, of course, slower and full of falsetto.

It took a while, but eventually McMorrow started talking some more. He eventually started commenting about how Garth Brooks was playing next door (at the Target Center), and that Brooks was his very first concert. "He didn't play our town of two hundred thousand." His dad took him to see Garth Brooks (twice!) and he remembered how he loved the laser show. On retrospect, he suspect it was just a guy with one lone laser pointer.

My favorite story was for "Follow You Down To The Red Oak Tree". A television producer wanted to use that song for their show, and apparently McMorrow will automatically grant any license. He admits he doesn't really watch the shows that uses his music… however, there was one show that came very close to using "Follow You…" in a show that he absolutely loved: Breaking Bad! The director felt it was more emotional to leave the scene silent. But since then, McMorrow was gutted to find out his song was not used.

James Vincent McMorrow and Moors are wrapping up their tour next week, hitting Seattle, Washington on Sunday. They end their tour at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on November 20th.