My Morning Jacket at the Armory (04-20-2025)

We last saw My Morning Jacket at the Palace Theatre in June, 2023 and it was a highlight of the year for the band knows how to put on a show.

In the review, I mentioned that “…they played some pretty good pre-show music, music you normally wouldn’t hear at a rock show with songs like “Caravan” and “Mood Indigo” from the Duke Ellington Orchestra.”

Waiting in the Armory for the opening act, the pre-show music played Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates and “In a Sentimental Mood” by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, which I took as an omen that the show would be just as entertaining.

Grace Cummings opened up the evening with a nine-song set. She is from Melbourne, Australia and is supporting her third album, Ramona. She has a powerful voice and a commanding presence. I heard shades of Cat Power. A photographer covering the show, Brandon, mentioned PJ Harvey.

Cummings played her first three songs with a band before moving to a couple of solo songs, one on the piano and the other acoustic guitar. At that point I heard echoes of Bob Dylan, which Cummings cites as an influence, even naming her latest album after his song “To Ramona”.

When she invited her band back on stage it was full-tilt with a sound that filled the cavernous venue, especially “Heaven”.

Looking at MMJ’s setlist on setlist.fm, it became apparent that they have no intention of playing the same songs night after night. Maybe that’s the prerogative of a band who has played close to thirty years together and is supporting its tenth album Is. Still, there must be a lot of scrambling backstage to keep up with the instrument changes and lighting that seemed to be schemed for each individual song.

From Louisville, Kentucky MMJ the band consists of Jim James on lead vocals and guitar, Tom Blakenship on bass, Patrick Hallahan on drums, Carl Broemel on guitar and Bo Koster on Keyboards. And for close to two and a half hours they kept their fan base enthralled with songs that always seemed to build into epic jams. “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2” would be a case in point.

There wasn’t much patter for the songs blended right into each other. James did take a moment to say that they had the day off on Saturday and had a wonderful time in Minneapolis going to an art museum and dining at 112 Eatery.

For “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” James invited Dave Simonett from Trampled by Turtles on stage who sang, then pulled his daughter from the wings to do a little dancing.

After the reggae-tinged “Off the Record” MMJ closed with “Die for It” and “Gideon”. And for the encore the gorgeous “Victory Dance”, then inviting Cummings on stage to cover Prince’s “Purple Rain”. And although four hours had almost elapsed since Cummings took the stage, the audience had enough to shake the floor for “One Big Holiday”.

As the main lights came up and I was getting ready to leave, a fan came over to let me know, “They brought it tonight,” After a fist bump, he repeated, “They brought it.”

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