My Morning Jacket‘s live shows are a hard rock tour de force. Taken apart from their work divining classics in the studio, live they have a palpable raw energy: each song building and building, until the audience cries out with delight. It’s a two-plus hour, roller coaster-like thrill ride, complete with spontaneous shrieks, as they ticker up and down (and around and round) the rhythmic hills of their impressive soundscape.
With bull-dogged determination, My Morning Jacket relentlessly seek to exceed every expectation. No song is complete without reaching new heights: whereby the listener receives a fresh dose of joy and rapture. Rapture is the keyword.
No doubt, the centrepiece of Thursday night’s set was a gnarly version of “Dondante” rumoured to have hit the 20-minute mark. Wrought with tension, this track has a major payoff in the form of mind-bending vocals and splintering guitar solos, and once there’s been adequate destruction, Carl Broemel comes in with a gorgeous sax track to smooth it all out.
Bravo!
Shortly after reaching cloud nine, via the chaos and ecstasy that is “Dondante“, My Morning Jacket continued to surprise and delight by pulling out a cover of the Velvet Underground‘s “Oh Sweet Nuthin‘”.
