Photos by Lefort

My Morning Jacket came to the Santa Barbara Bowl Saturday and buttoned up the widely held belief that they are amongst the best live bands on the planet.  Despite having been on the road incessantly since mid-May in support of their new album, “Circuital,” the Jacket boys dug deep and threw off the ties that hinder and tether, and together with the audience, floated up into the sonic stratosphere.

Early on in the set, we briefly sensed the band’s exhaustion (understandable given their set the day before at the High Sierra Music Festival in the hinterlands northwest of Tahoe, and long travel after to Santa Barbara).  But they hid their fatigue well and galvanized behind hirsute guises and gazes, all the while gathering energy from the frenzied crowd and hallowed Bowl grounds.

As it has throughout its tour, the band opened with Victory Tour (Circuital’s opener) followed by Circuital.  The show began to take off with the  triumvirate of Off the Record, Anytime and Gideon.  The dynamic duo of At Dawn and Golden further levitated the crowd.  And then I’m Amazed floored.  For the hardcore connoisseurs, they then gave us the semi-obscure, reggae-influenced Phone Went West.  Next up was Dondante, the brilliant, elegiac ode to a former band member who left this earth too soon.  Introducing the song (perhaps in a nod to his passed friend), James said that the International Space Station would be flying over our direct location between 8:57 and 9:01.  He was narrowly off when the Station evidently (we missed it) became visible above the Bowl at 9:02.  Check the song and Station out below, courtesy of Sonic Ambulance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uMp1iYGTkU&feature=player_embedded

Throughout the night Jim James amazed with his ghost-siren vocals and percussive, driving guitar playing.  At times he seemed to sing with and to the revenants and spirits of the next world, just to let us in on a glorious vision and the sweetness of his longing.  And yet James tapped into the temporal too.  He stamped, rocked and repeatedly challenged drummer Patrick Hallahan, multi-instrumentalist Carl Broemel, and bassist Two-Tone Tommy to lift their games.  And each time they did, at times seeming to speak in musical tongues.  They left no question that in their musical revival tent, the spirits of Marvin Gaye, Joe Strummer, Neil Young (though he thankfully lives and plays on) and Bob Marley are well-channeled.

Hallahan deserves special mention as he is simply one of the best rock drummers in the business, playing with relentless drive and aplomb, all the while with his hair flailing and mouth agape (mirrored repeatedly by the slack-jawed audience that surrounded us).  And Broemel’s guitar, pedal steel and sax playing provide the perfect complement to the band and music.  We were initially unimpressed by Two-Tone Tommy, but it wasn’t long before he came to life, threw off his three-piece suit jacket, and began to dexterously slaughter the bottom line.  Bo Coster also added some nice touches on keys and percussion.

After Dondante, the band killed new crowd-favorite Holdin’ on to Black Metal.  The band was in full drive and the crowd responded by screaming the choruses, providing the best singalong we’ve heard since Arcade Fire’s Wake Up.   The one-two of Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2 and crowd-favorite Mahgeeta euphorically ended the main set.

The audience’s hearty, Bowl-shaking effort to bring the band back was rewarded with an energetic encore consisting of Wordless Chorus, Highly Suspicious, and One Big Holiday. When James came back onstage he had a cape on, a la James Brown, which he eventually threw off and raced across the stage in abandon, ending in a drop-knee slide across the stage.  Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney couldn’t have done it any better, and the crowd went wild.  You can check Wordless Chorus below.

On Highly Suspicious, James one-upped Prince on vocals and the band raved on.  And then MMJ throttled up further with the anthemic One Big Holiday, tapping their last energy reserves and playing up to the very last second of the Bowl’s buzz-kill curfew (additional songs The Day Is Coming and I Will Sing You were on the band’s setlist but went un-played courtesy of the curfew).

A couple of minor “constructive complaints” about the show.  First: MMJ, please don’t go Milli Vanilli on us and drop in canned background vocal tracks.  Either bring Becky Stark and the Watson Twins (as seen recently on Conan, which you can check out HERE) or leave the canned vocals out.  They do a disservice to an otherwise perfect performance.  Second: the sound on the floor in GA was not optimum, with James vocals and Broemel’s instrumentals frequently getting lost in the mix.  While the sound at the sound board is  undoubtedly perfect, the sound on the floor seems to be lacking frequently in the reconfigured Bowl (all of which would seem to be easily remedied by adding some speakers at floor-level).

And finally, Central Coast, a word if we may:  We suggest that the next time My Morning Jacket comes to Santa Barbara you stay focused and do whatever you have to do to catch one of the best live bands on the earth.  Don’t let seats go unfilled like on Saturday.  It was another in a series of embarrassing moments recently for musical Santa Barbara.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOXgGzDYmhU&feature=player_embedded#at=174

Setlist

1. Victory Dance
2. Circuital
3. First Light
4. Off The Record
5. Anytime
6. Gideon
7. You Wanna Freak Out
8. At Dawn
9. Golden
10. Outta My System
11. The Way That He Sings
12. I’m Amazed
13. Dancefloors
14. Phone Went West
15. Slow Slow Tune
16. Dondante
17. Holdin On To Black Metal
18. Smokin From Shootin
19. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Pt.2
20. Mahgeetah
———-
21. Wordless Chorus
22. Highly Suspicious
23. One Big Holiday