A Pleasant Recap of An Amazing Weekend

My Morning Jacket from Tugboat Productions on Vimeo.
I've been a rabid My Morning Jacket fan for quite some time now, but I've tried my best to keep this blog free of my fanboy-dom. But, recently I stumbled upon something too personally gratifying not to post. In honor of "Celebrate your local record store day" - an event that was previously unknown to me - My Morning Jacket are releasing an EP of some select cuts from recent concerts in Louisvilly, KY - their hometown. It just so happens that I was at one of the shows from which some of the tracks are culled. My experience at that show turned out to be just one of the life-affirming moments I had that weekend in Kentucky. Needless to say, I was thrilled to discover this 18-minute video which is more or less a slideshow for what the event was all about. I think I need to expound a little bit about the weekend and what it meant to me. After all, it ended up being not just 'another show'.

I arrived in Korea on August 21st. On August 15th my father and I drove to Louisville, KY - the band's hometown - for the first show of their fall tour. It was important to me that I be there for several reasons. One; in a period of my life that was intensely terrifying, nothing could have been more comforting than a balls to the wall show from my favorite band in the world. Two; the setting - a stage right in the middle of Louisville's beautiful riverside park - conveyed a sense of urgency about the event that the tour's subsequent club stops did not. Three; it was really important to me that I saw the birthplace of a band who had profoundly affected my life. Four; and perhaps most importantly, the 9 hour drive gave my father and I some invaluable face time in a period when I think we both really needed it.

Quite frankly, I planned on driving down all by my lonesome. I think it surprised both of us when I happily accepted his offer to tag along. In retrospect I think we both needed to catch up with each other. My college years had come to a close 3 months earlier, and my dad and I had not really had a lengthy conversation about where I was in life. I don't think he had a gauge yet on how I had changed as a person in the previous years. Had I become a man? Had I grown at all? Hopefully he came away from the weekend feeling that 'sort of' and 'yes' answered those questions. But who knows. What he certainly doesn't know - until now (assuming he reads this) - is that I took away just as much from our car chats as I did from the concert. In the end I believe it will be our time in the car that I will look back upon most vividly.

All said and done it was probably the best weekend of my summer '08. (Yes, it even out-touched Lollapalooza; but just just barely). The show was everything I hoped it would be and more. MMJ played a rock solid 3+ hours, and even busted out "Where to Begin", a song that I would call an uber-rarity, and also one of my top 5 favorite tunes of theirs. I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I actually left the show one song early. They launched into a tune that usually comes out as a closer, and I've never really been that into it. At that point I figured why not just take a leisurely walk back to the hotel, and perhaps, to the bar. It turns out that the song in question was not the closer, but in fact only bled into the closer - a song I really love.

I paused for a second, and considered sprinting back to revel in the final moments of what had been truly a beautiful night. Then I realized something. I realized that I was in a moment that needed to play itself out. I looked up. I saw the lights from the concert splashing across the office buildings, and I felt - really felt - the music filling the spaces in between them. It was 12:30 or so and there was nobody in the streets of Louisville. I distinctly remember walking aimlessly for 20 minutes - the music never fading out of earshot - feeling as if it was just me, the empty buildings, the music, my father (asleep in the hotel), and my future. It was a moment so perfect and pristine that I had to stop at one point, dead in my tracks, and just breathe it in.

That night, the band's lead singer, Jim James, spoke to the crowd about his belief that as people live on, pieces of their essence stay behind in every experience they've had. He would say that as I type this message here in Korea, an intangible part of me is still standing on that corner in Louisville, KY, feeling life explode all over me. I don't usually allow myself to feed into pseudo-mystical rhetoric like that. But, in this instance I'm inclined to let it slide. It's too important to me that something, somewhere is still feeling the magic I felt that night.

My Morning Jacket - Where to Begin