My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket

Photo by John Carrico

Fans and critics alike split on My Morning Jacket's latest, Evil Urges, mostly due to a couple of Prince-like funk rips that take the Kentucky crew in an unexpected direction. Live, the quintet's always been another animal, and its sprawling, almost three-hour performance at a sold-out Stubb's demonstrated why the band's revered like few making music today. Their combination of Southern rock, funk, prog, reggae, alt.country, blue-eyed soul, folk ballads, and space jams was dizzying and exhausting. Relying on songs from Evil Urges, singer/guitarist Jim James stalked the stage, spun in circles, howled, and banged his head. Occasionally he dropped the guitar and donned a cape, an homage to Prince perhaps, and more than once covered his head with a towel while singing, trying to cool himself in the dense August heat. Oddly enough, the audience seemed muted at times, especially to the newer tunes. Reaction to more familiar material like "Golden," "The Way That He Sings," and "Gideon" was ecstatic in comparison, but even radio hit "I'm Amazed," with a funky beat and Jimmy Page guitar break from Carl Broemel, couldn't break the chattering class. Broemel was the evening's MVP, twice breaking out a saxophone to add some new color to the roar. The encore closing one-two of "Mahgeetah" and "One Big Holiday" brought to mind MMJ's earlier days when it was all about big rawk. The sweat pit down front writhed in ecstasy.