I Was There

The highlight came early and powerfully at the I'm Not There concert last night. It was song three, about 15 minutes into the show, when Jim James came out in a navy blue hoodie sweatshirt, his hands stuffed in its pockets. Calexico was "The Band" for this portion of the evening. Jim approached the microphone and perfectly delivered "Goin' to Acapulco" - his song on the soundtrack. His performance incited three separate bursts of applause from the audience (and three sets of extreme shivers from yours truly) when he belted and sustained the "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!"

The remainder of the show was okay - "meh" as the kids like to say. Equipment and sound problems were distracting. Many of the performances seemed unrehearsed and somewhat uninspired. There was a memorable yet awkward moment when a gum-smacking Heath Ledger introduced some Devandra-esque barechested weirdo guy, Edward Sharpe, and his spun out girlfriend/vocalist, one of his Magnetic Zeros, to perform "All I Really Want to Do." Al Cooper did a rousing and horn-laden version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." Ian Ball and Olly Peacock from Gomez brought some brightness to the stage with their cover of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." Yo La Tengo did their part as "The Band" and performed their songs that are on the soundtrack - "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and "Fourth Time Around." But the house was not brought down again until the entire My Morning Jacket band came on stage to perform "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You." The energy level in the room skyrocketed especially as Jim sang "I can hear that lonesome whistle blowin'!!!"

Okay, fine. We (I) are (am) tend to have an extremely positive slant towards anything related to Jim James or My Morning Jacket around here. But this is my blog, so there. (And they just happen to be the best band on the planet.)

Poor Mason Jennings had to follow MMJ with an otherwise lovely acoustic "Times They Are A Changin'." The audience was told that there were a few musicians on the bill that missed flights and whatnot so we were going to be treated with a few surprises. Ooooh, who could it be? Tweedy? Trey?? Dylan himself??? Nope, it was this girl Tift Merritt, who came out with her acoustic guitar and completely shattered "Hard Rain." Sometimes the unknown surprises can be the best. The show ended with a robust and eerie "Masters of War" by The Roots and then an everyone-who's-still-backstage-come-on-out-and-sing version of "All Along The Watchtower."

All in all a good night of music punctuated by that amazing performance of "Goin' to Acapulco" by Jim. A feel-good celebration of the music of the great Bob Dylan. The thrown-together feeling might be preparing us for the jigsaw puzzle that is the film itself which I cannot wait to see.

By the way, have I told you lately that I love Jim James?

Check out the complete setlist along with some streams over at HT.