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Setlist
Tour Dates
12/07/16 Portland, OR Roseland Theater
Read More12/09/16 Austin, TX Austin City Limits Live 12/10/16 Las Vegas, NV Brooklyn Bowl 12/11/16 Tempe, AZ The Marquee 12/13/16 Austin, TX Austin City Limits Live 12/14/16 Dallas, TX House Of Blues 12/16/16 Houston, TX House Of Blues 12/17/16 New Orleans, LA Civic Theatre 12/18/16 Birmingham, AL Iron City
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Outside, the skies of an early December were cloudy and overcast—
Inside the State Theatre in Minneapolis, it strangely looked similar, thanks to dim lighting and a fog machine, but the music shone through enough to make it anything but cloudy (but maybe purposely hazy) as Jim James returned to town for a headlining performance.
The evening began with a forty-minute set from the curious and beguiling Twin Limb, a dream/psych folk pop band from Louisville, KY, not coincidentally, the home of James and his band My Morning Jacket.
The trio, (Lacey Guthrie- Accordion, keys, vocals; Maryliz Bender- Drums, guitar, vocals; and Kevin Ratterman- pedals, guitar) recently released their full-length Haplo (Suretone Records) as well as collaborated with James on a cover of Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade into You’.
The association with Mazzy is fair as they play similar layered, lonely sounding atmospheric songs, with Guthrie and Ratterman on one end of the stage, and drummer Bender on the other. When Guthrie moved to accordion and the middle of the stage, the droning, brooding sound was more similar to Sixteen Horsepower, all embellished by Ratterman’s Fripp-esque guitar pedals and effects.
“You made a believer out of me” Guthrie crooned on ‘Yoo Doo Right’ mid-set and by then, the band was solidly winning over the still milling in crowd. Guthrie’s vocal range can climb as well, sometimes to Florence Welch territories but is nuanced enough to gently float back down to a hush. Set-enders ‘Long Shadow’ and ‘Don’t Even Think’ proved an ideal soundtrack for a stark chilly night outside.
Twin Limb fans more than got their money’s worth, as the band worked double duty, playing as part of Jim James’ band for his 110 min. headlining performance, and which also meant a quick set change before he got started.
Though James is more known for his work with My Morning Jacket, that band is more about setting a groove or just plain rocking, while James’ solo material, including new album Eternally Even (ATO, Capitol Records) draws from seemingly more personal lyrics, and a greater variance of sounds and influences.
Folk, soul, rock, psych, and anything else he can think of, are combined into a kind of mystic gumbo that makes up his sound with James opening up with the first two songs from the new album, ‘Hide in Plain Sight’ and ‘Same Old Lie’. Dressed in a dark overcoat and sunglasses, he marched amongst minimal lighting from one stage end to the other, only breaking a couple times to address the crowd.
‘A New Life’ seemed more loose and buoyant than when we saw him play it on his last tour and ‘Actress’ seemed timely as an internal reflection about worshipping false idols. The new album was more than well represented, as all its tracks were played, though not in succession.
‘True Nature’ smacked with an early ‘70s-sounding backbeat while ‘Know ‘Til Now’ moved into a space rock groove with a droning organ accompaniment. Halfway through, there was something you don’t see too much of at rock shows any more- an actual drum solo, which led into the meditative ‘Here in Spirit’.
The new material seems to look more inward, perhaps the result of his actively practicing transcendental meditation, as in the main set closing title track from the album and its lyric, “Nothing more and nothing less, life's been completely fair, eternally even”.
For the encore, James came out solo, completely aware of where he was playing this night and began with a bare version of Prince’s ‘The Beautiful Ones’, with just his falsetto and acoustic guitar.
Smoothly seguing next into a cover from another Minnesota hero, Bob Dylan, the tempo picked up and the full band joined him again for his own ‘Of the Mother Again’ and lyric, “Oh destiny, to be seated at the right hand of the mother again” perhaps a nod to Prince’s untimely passing. Side project The New Basement Tapes was represented with ‘Down on the Bottom’, a song James finished from discarded Dylan lyrics.
Though there were no Monsters of Folk songs and no sax solos this time out, the evening ended with the sonic slow-building punch of ‘State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)’, crescendo-ing in temporary darkness in the theatre just as James would sing, “the power’s really going out”.
With a timely new album and tour that questions the current times but hopes for its future, Jim James helps us transcend any overcast haze, to find that glimmer in an otherwise cloudy sky.
Inside the State Theatre in Minneapolis, it strangely looked similar, thanks to dim lighting and a fog machine, but the music shone through enough to make it anything but cloudy (but maybe purposely hazy) as Jim James returned to town for a headlining performance.
The evening began with a forty-minute set from the curious and beguiling Twin Limb, a dream/psych folk pop band from Louisville, KY, not coincidentally, the home of James and his band My Morning Jacket.
The trio, (Lacey Guthrie- Accordion, keys, vocals; Maryliz Bender- Drums, guitar, vocals; and Kevin Ratterman- pedals, guitar) recently released their full-length Haplo (Suretone Records) as well as collaborated with James on a cover of Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade into You’.
The association with Mazzy is fair as they play similar layered, lonely sounding atmospheric songs, with Guthrie and Ratterman on one end of the stage, and drummer Bender on the other. When Guthrie moved to accordion and the middle of the stage, the droning, brooding sound was more similar to Sixteen Horsepower, all embellished by Ratterman’s Fripp-esque guitar pedals and effects.
“You made a believer out of me” Guthrie crooned on ‘Yoo Doo Right’ mid-set and by then, the band was solidly winning over the still milling in crowd. Guthrie’s vocal range can climb as well, sometimes to Florence Welch territories but is nuanced enough to gently float back down to a hush. Set-enders ‘Long Shadow’ and ‘Don’t Even Think’ proved an ideal soundtrack for a stark chilly night outside.
Twin Limb fans more than got their money’s worth, as the band worked double duty, playing as part of Jim James’ band for his 110 min. headlining performance, and which also meant a quick set change before he got started.
Though James is more known for his work with My Morning Jacket, that band is more about setting a groove or just plain rocking, while James’ solo material, including new album Eternally Even (ATO, Capitol Records) draws from seemingly more personal lyrics, and a greater variance of sounds and influences.
Folk, soul, rock, psych, and anything else he can think of, are combined into a kind of mystic gumbo that makes up his sound with James opening up with the first two songs from the new album, ‘Hide in Plain Sight’ and ‘Same Old Lie’. Dressed in a dark overcoat and sunglasses, he marched amongst minimal lighting from one stage end to the other, only breaking a couple times to address the crowd.
‘A New Life’ seemed more loose and buoyant than when we saw him play it on his last tour and ‘Actress’ seemed timely as an internal reflection about worshipping false idols. The new album was more than well represented, as all its tracks were played, though not in succession.
‘True Nature’ smacked with an early ‘70s-sounding backbeat while ‘Know ‘Til Now’ moved into a space rock groove with a droning organ accompaniment. Halfway through, there was something you don’t see too much of at rock shows any more- an actual drum solo, which led into the meditative ‘Here in Spirit’.
The new material seems to look more inward, perhaps the result of his actively practicing transcendental meditation, as in the main set closing title track from the album and its lyric, “Nothing more and nothing less, life's been completely fair, eternally even”.
For the encore, James came out solo, completely aware of where he was playing this night and began with a bare version of Prince’s ‘The Beautiful Ones’, with just his falsetto and acoustic guitar.
Smoothly seguing next into a cover from another Minnesota hero, Bob Dylan, the tempo picked up and the full band joined him again for his own ‘Of the Mother Again’ and lyric, “Oh destiny, to be seated at the right hand of the mother again” perhaps a nod to Prince’s untimely passing. Side project The New Basement Tapes was represented with ‘Down on the Bottom’, a song James finished from discarded Dylan lyrics.
Though there were no Monsters of Folk songs and no sax solos this time out, the evening ended with the sonic slow-building punch of ‘State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)’, crescendo-ing in temporary darkness in the theatre just as James would sing, “the power’s really going out”.
With a timely new album and tour that questions the current times but hopes for its future, Jim James helps us transcend any overcast haze, to find that glimmer in an otherwise cloudy sky.
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Twin Limb |
Twin Limb |
Setlist |
Jim James |
Jim James |
Jim James |
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Jim James at State Theatre, Minneapolis (01 Dec 2016) |
