04.18.2025 | My Morning Jacket
Grace Cummings
The Riverside Theater| Milwaukee, WI
There are some bands that are always adjacent to your daily listeners, and you know they’re great, but for some reason just never got into them. My Morning Jacket is one of those for me. The bear embracing the cover of their 2003 alum “It Still Moves” is iconic. And the release of their 10th album, “Is”, this spring marks almost 30 years of music and proves they haven’t lost anything.
Friday night marked Jim James and crew’s tenth time in Milwaukee and seventh at the Riverside Theater. It was my first, as well as a Milwaukee couple I met in the front row, but we were the minority. Unbeknownst to me, MMJ has quite the following. So many people in the front row knew everyone by name, including many of the photographers. One couple, visiting Milwaukee for the first time, from Philly this made show 110. And after the nearly two and a half hour journey, I can understand all the hype.
Seconds into the intro song “Run Thru” there was an energy felt throughout the Riverside not normally felt at my usual sing-songwrite shows. They went immediately into their hit “Run it” back into a reprise of “Run Thru”. “Half A Lifetime” off their latest record rounded out our time up front and set the tone for the rest of the night.
Dazzling lights, mirrorballs, solos and jams led us back through the discography knocking off songs from five different albums before a repeat before opener Grace Cummings came back to the stage joining James for “River Road” and a cover of AC/DC’s “ Ride On”. Though a show that lasts as long as an MMJ show runs, one might think that would have been the perfect place for an intermission, but the energy level never dropped - not from the band moving all over the stage even if James was too far from the audience to do his infamous “boop” - to the entire crowd dancing.
I normally do some due diligence and listen to the openers ahead of time just to get a vibe check, but I’ll be honest, I did not listen to enough Grace Cummings. Her quiet piano to open the night was what I expected, but the second half was simply good rock guitar. Grace’s energy and angst left me pleasantly surprised and will have her added into some playlists for sure.
All in all, it was two and a half hours of a perfect blend of indie rock, psychedelic jams and dazzling lights. It was about time I gave My Morning Jacket a real listen and was fortunate enough to experience it live. When Jim James and crew inevitably return to Milwaukee I’d recommend grabbing a ticket quickly, because they won’t last long.
