My Morning Jacket - Concert Review 10.16.05 Portland, ME

If you haven't seen My Morning Jacket live, do yourself a favor and go do it as soon as possible. These guys rock, and they come to play. I saw them last night at the State Theater in Portland, Maine. They played a lot of new stuff off of Z that sounded great. The whole main set was without Bassist Tom. He had an allergic reaction to some shellfish he had eaten and was in the hospital. We had the option for a refund on our tickets, but forget that we came to rock with My Morning Jacket. We were left with a quartet that played their hearts out. They opened with the new opening track, "Wordless Chorus". Jim belted his lungs out and this song is quickly growing on me as well as all of the new album tracks. Now I didn't get a hold of the setlist, but I remember most of the key tracks. "One Big Holiday" was quite the crowd pleaser, "What A Wonderful Man", "It Beats 4 U", "What a Wonderful Man", and "Off the Record" all got the crowd moving and fist pumping. Kathlene Edwards joined the boys on stage for "Golden", and the epic "Dondante" was amazing. The Nick Drake cover of "Nothern Sky" made my girlfriend happy, I didn't recognize it until she told me. There were probably only about 3-4 hundred people at the show. It is kind of sad for such a great band, but it was a Sunday night and the show wasn't very well publicized. If you haven't heard of these guys or need some music to get into them check out this show from Washington, DC last week.