At Merriweather Post Pavilion Friday night, opener Neko Case inhabited a mellow country-rock groove. She was a good choice to set the stage for My Morning Jacket, who often build their songs off of a country and blues base. Stand up bass, banjo, and slide guitar all made an appearance during Neko’s set, but her most potent instrument is her own voice. She has the ability to soar or to kill with melancholy cool, bringing to mind Stevie Nick’s best vocal performances with Fleetwood Mac.
When she played songs with stronger, more rock-oriented arrangements, her voice did not get as much space as it deserved. But on songs like “Star Witness,” Neko was superlative and sultry, blending with her back-up for breath-taking harmonies or climbing effortlessly above them, her voice washing soothingly over the crowd.
Near the end of her set, Neko thanked the crowd for joining her “to stalk My Morning Jacket,” adding “they’re so furry… and they rock.” She wasn’t wrong; both rock and fur, in the form of beards and sweaty locks, were in abundance. (I can’t speak to the number of MMJ stalkers in the crowd.)
Lead singer Jim James started the evening hurling himself around the stage, hopping from one foot to the other, as the band jumped into a visceral version of Circuital’s opening track “Victory Dance.” James spent much of the night gesticulating and gyrating, his arms thrown in one direction while his hair exploded the opposite way. (James’ hair is a vastly underrated member of the band.) He launched frenzied guitar solos, jumped up and down, and generally led his band like a wonderfully deranged hooligan, howling, screaming, and crooning as the occasion demanded, a versatile, enthusiastic, and often riveting front man.
Throughout the show, the guitar interplay between James and fellow guitarist Carl Broemel was stunning. They traded riffs or piled them on top of each other, winding around each other in a complex musical game of twister. Long, squealing notes slid in seamlessly with short vibrato runs. Sometimes the guitars took on a jagged, reggae-tinged feel (“Off The Record”); for several tracks from Evil Urges, they took on a precise, disco-funk smoothness. James played liquid lines for lovely ballads like “Slow Tune”; during the bridge a searing Broemel solo made the spare rhythm guitar melody that much more effective.
I’m not sure which member of MMJ Neko has the biggest crush on, but my money would be on Broemel: in addition to his incendiary lead guitar, Broemel also plays slide guitar and saxophone. The sound of slide guitar teams up especially well with James’ voice, complementing its keening highness. The sax was a great touch, of which I would’ve liked to have seen more. (Another Circuital highlight, “Holdin’ on To Black Metal,” was begging for live horns.) The thick tones of the sax added heft to the rhythm section’s groove and accentuated the spikiness of James’ guitar.
MMJ ended a powerful encore with “One Big Holiday,” one of their most famous songs, from the album It Still Moves. The song begins and ends with both guitars circling steadily upward, impossibly fast, dangerously high, working in unison—it’s guaranteed to be stuck in your head for at least twenty-four hours. It’s also a perfect way to end a set: you never want that riff to stop, but you are left with an indelible impression once it inevitably comes to an end. You may not have arrived at Merriweather planning to stalk MMJ, but by the end there’s a good chance you were considering it.
Photo Credit: Amy Willard
