ill Jim :-(

[Lieven]

:'(  What a pitty...
Was really looking forward hearing them again. During first songs I noticed that Jim's voice was not ok. Bit later he appologized for being ill...
Most songs were instrumental, still rockin' but I really missed his voice...

A pitty for us, but it must have been really sad for them too. I guess they did all they could.

Hope you get better soon, Jim!! Take care!
See you back soon i hope  8).

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

That is a bummer...

[Mamoulian]

was there too (hey lieven, it's pieter!) and well... it was indeed a damn shame, while the vocals on the first few songs weren't maybe 100% it sounded great, especially because this was the 1st time live for me. I hope we can enter their next gig for free with the ticket from last night, would be nice... and since they're so sorry...

[lfish]

I have the same feeling lieven.  It was really very pitty. Without Jim's voice the jacket is only half a jacket, but nevertheless I enjoyed the instrumental part and I must say that sometimes Jim's voice wasn't needed at all.  But you could notice that the members weren't at ease like they use to be when playing their shows. Also the short set, only one hour and a quarter, was a bummer, but nobody is to blame here. I hope they'll return pretty soon to give a hell of a show. My hunger to see them live has only become bigger.

[Kristof]

I had a talk with Danny Cash after the gig and he told me that they were considering cancelling the show, so we are actually very lucky to have seen this. They didn't cancel because so many people already bought tickets and because they don't often come here, MMJ didn't want to dissapoint us! So thanks guys!
I even got some fetish stuff, I got Jim's swetty towell (with the sick bacteria on it ;), one of Jims plectrums and I got my It Still Moves CD signed by the band, woohaaaa!

[lfish]

I got this from a friend who wasn't really satisfied by the gig last night, so she wrote a letter to the ancienne belgique.  She got this answer back.  

Ook bij andere mensen uit het publiek, de pers en bij ons (AB) was de
teleurstelling groot. Er waren inderdaad problemen met z'n stem, maar de
groep en z'n  tourmanager stonden erop het optreden alsnog te laten
doorgaan. Er werd dan ook geopteerd om het voorprogramma iets langer te
laten spelen en de MMJ set in te korten. Maar dat heeft blijkbaar niet
geholpen.

Jim James heeft zich nadien uitdrukkelijk tegenover ons verontschuldigd. De
reden waarom hij absoluut het podium op wou is dat hij aan de vooravond
staat van de doorbraak in België (een mooie doorgroei van de ABClub naar de
ABBox en een schitterend album bij BMG) en hij wou al die fans die op een
dinsdagavond naar Brussel waren afgezakt niet teleurstellen. Nou ja, dat
heeft helaas een tegenovergesteld effect gehad.

Was je nadien ook in de ABClub bij ST. THOMAS? Die had MMJ niet gezien en
vroeg niets vermoedend wat het publiek er van vond. Hun reactie sprak
boekdelen, waarna hij de avond - voor mij en hopelijk vele anderen - nog
heeft goed gemaakt.

Ik hoop tevens van harte dat je alsnog van de schitterende concerten van
CENTRO-MATIC en ST. THOMAS hebt kunnen genieten.

Onze excuses nogmaals, maar de beslissing lag voor 100% bij de artiest.




I don't think that it has done any good for mmj publicity here in Belgium. (Even belgium press don't mention the gig.) I think a lot of people, who don't know the jacket as good as some of us, are really dissapointed.  Because this was the chance were they could be totally convinced of the quality of the jacket, I think many of them won't go to another gig of the jacket.  This article says that Jim and their manager wanted to perform because this was their chance for a breakthrough here in Belgium and they also didn't want to dissapoint the audience who already bought their tickets.  This is of course very nice, but I think that this decision had the inverse effect on most of the audience.  Jim appologized himself after the gig, but many people have the feeling they paid for something which wasn't as good as they hoped to be. Maybe it would have been a better choice to postpone this gig and come back when they were all healthy, but this is nevertheless a tough decision to make.
So I only hope that mmj receives the attention they deserve, here in Belgium.

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

While I understand their disappointment, I would hope that they also understand that they are human beings, and like I said in another post...imagine what it's like from the singer's perspective.  Hundreds of gigs a year, millions of miles travelled...thousands of fans to play for.

Should they have cancelled the gig, and played at a later date?  Not for me to answer...I'm very sure that they made the best decision they could have.

And, I'm very sure they will be back in the future.  

So, what's my point?  Forgive.  Understand.  Give these boys another chance.

[Oz]

Yeah, it's a shame, and I understand how disapointed you must be... But that's easy for me to say, since I saw them the day before in Amsterdam, when Jims voice was still splendid... You really should go see them when they come back, that's all I can say.

[lfish]

Well I sure will, when they come to belgium again but I don't know if other people are willing to go. But as you said John, a little bit of understanding fits well in here. I'm glad you enjoyed the show O in amsterdam.

[Ger]

Tonight's scheduled performance at VPRO's Club 3voor12 has been cancelled.  :'(

Ger.
Visit "From Nashville To Kentucky" at http://www.magnix.demon.nl/mmj/

[AMhjG]

Disappointment?

To me they just proved that their music is so much more than "the reverb" and "haunting voice" that everyone is talking about.
What I saw yesterday was what R&R should be all about: balls  heart and soul!

I saw "Starsailor" the day before on the same stage. Great concert, but take the vocals away and by the end of the show half of the audience would have left. I did not see anybody leave during the MMJ gig though!

Great gig and thanks for playing!!

[Lieven]

Damn Kristof, you lucky bastard! I better stayed with you :)!

It is indeed a difficult decission: postpone or perform... Whatever, I'm not judging their decission, I just started this topic to hear other people's opinions. I'm glad I saw them! People (unfortunately) dó get ill sometimes, great singers not excluded. I guess he really meant it when he sang "is there a doctor in the house tonight".

They promised to be back soon, so in fact we (belgians) will be able to see them again! I saw them 3 times now, all three totally different: once Jim solo, once the whole band and yesterday instrumental ;)

They really did all they could to keep rockin'. (One big holiday for example was cool) Pitty we didn't all just sang together, would have been nice.

PS: O, nu allicht blij dat je niet in Vlaanderen woont zeker? Was ik maar even een Nederlander... lol

[Lieven]

By the way (just to get to know some people):

* who was the (Dutch) guy with the beard and hat/cap
... Riny??

* who's the friendly lady who's sometimes behind the cd's/t-shirts and stuff?
... tourmanager??

If I'm totally wrong, sorry I'm just guessing.

And did I saw you yesterday, lfish?

[CC]

have some sorta beard goin but no cap/hat so wasn't me... you're right about the friendly lady though.

[lfish]

I don't know if you saw me lieven, I was standing in front, in the middle of the stage.  Jim often nearly wiped his hair in my face.  Were you the guy on the right of the stage who tried to replace jim by trying to sing along or were you the guy who climbed on the stage to propose jim a new singer (probably a friend of him)?  Or were you just another guy in the crowd? I think it's pretty difficult to know if we saw eachother if we don't know how we look. Next time I wear a red rose in the pocket of my jacket.   ;D
I met this guy yesterday who is actually standing in the booklet of at dawn, somewhere in the crowd of the cactus festival in brugge.  Cool to know that you're inside the booklet of the best rock group ever existed.  

[lfish]

Ok here's a review of the concert in the AB.  The article is from the journal "de standaard".  Despite all expectations the jacket still got some attention in Belgian press. (So jimmie nothing is lost here in Belgium)
For the not dutch reading part, I will highlight the most important comment.  This article says that the first couple of songs they played (from the new album, it started with magheeta, then dancefloors) were really good. But then Jim announced he was ill and had some problems with his voice, so he announced some instrumental songs.  About those songs (the way that he sings, war begun, one big holliday, run thru), they say that the songs sounded like bad replacements of Crazy horse or Badfunk railroad songs. And that they played to many of those instrumental songs, so attention within the audience started to wine. But the author of this article obviously doesn't know much about mmj.  She thinks that the song "the war" (in fact war begun) was, although it was an instrumental, quite exciting.  But she didn't like other instrumental songs like "magheeta" which was in fact the first song they played and were jim actually did sing. So some mistakes in this review. But this article ends with a positive note.  They find it a real pitty that Jim was ill, because they know that mmj already gave some real fantastic shows in our country and so they don't have any doubts about the talent and quality of mmj.  Therefore they will be standing in first row when mmj comes back to correct this bummer. They also found it very nice of the jacket that they still performed after a great show of centromatic (will johnson), even when they knew that their show wouldn't be that great because of Jim's voice.

Ok and now the review:

"Even zag het ernaar uit dat de show van My Morning Jacket in het water zou vallen.  De zanger, Jim James, klaagde over ontstoken stembanden en had geen dokter kunnen raadplegen zodat het concert aan een zijden draadje hing.  Dat My Morning Jacket toch nog durfde opkomen na het uitstekende optreden van Centro-matic, siert de groep.  Centro-matic verzorgde immers een ijzersterk voorprogramma en overschaduwde in de AB moeiteloos My Morning Jacket.  Dat lag niet alleen aan de ziekte van Jim James maar ook aan de bezielde vertolkingen van de Centro-matic-frontman Will Johnson.  Op Pukkelpop zagen we deze Texaan trioferen als South San Gabriel, met intimistische americana.  Met Centro-matic nam hij samen met zijn drie compagnongs het publiek op sleeptouw door snauwende brokken countryrock, ongepolijst gitaarwerk en ijle melodieën à la Neil Young.  De toeschouwers vergaapten zich aan de fraaie uitvoeringen van de songs uit de cd Love you just the same, nog niet beseffend dat dit het beste luik van de avond zou worden.  Want het werd meteen duidelijk dat Jim James het geen volledige set zou volhouden.  Zijn stem klonk dun en vermoeid en soms verslikte hij zich in de tekst.  We hoorden een paar mooie songs uit de nieuwe bejubelde plaat "it still moves", maar James had zichtbaar meer plezier aan het headbangen - de leden zagen er met hun dikke, lange kapsels en baarden uit als monsters uid de Muppet Show- dan aan zingen.  Drie nummers later gaf de zingende haardos het op. Hij verontschuldigde zich bij het publiek en beloofde een paar instrumentale nummers.  Maar het werder er te veel: "The war" kreeg nog een opwindende gitaarsolo mee maar nieuwe songs zoals "One big holliday" of "Magheeta" zakten als een pudding in elkaar.  James' galmende, intrieste zang is immers cruciaal voor de sound van My Morning Jacket.  Nu moest het teleurgestelde publiek zich tevreden stellen met instrumentaaltjes die vaak klonken als afdankertjes van Crazy Horse of Grand Funk Railroad.  James deed nog een schamele poging om te zingen in het reggae-achtige "phone went west".  Tevergeefs: Zijn magere piepstemmetje stierf weg  voor het de microfoon had bereikt.  Doodjammer natuurlijk.  Want My Moring Jacket heeft in ons land al fantastische concerten gegeven en we twijfelen dus niet aan het talent van de groep.  Reken maar dat we op de voorste rij staan als Jim James terug komt om deze flater goed te maken."

My personal highlights of this show:

I will sing you songs
Phone went west
war begun
christmas curtain

greetz

[Oz]

PS: O, nu allicht blij dat je niet in Vlaanderen woont zeker? Was ik maar even een Nederlander... lol

Yes, for once, I was glad to be Dutch. Who'd have thought that would ever happen?  ;)

[Oz]

I met this guy yesterday who is actually standing in the booklet of at dawn, somewhere in the crowd of the cactus festival in brugge.  Cool to know that you're inside the booklet of the best rock group ever existed.  

Hey, I should be on that picture, too, for I was there... But I haven't found myself, though. Guess that's the price you pay for being a rather small guy.  :(

[CC]

hey all,
frankfurt and hamburg had to be cancelled but the boys should be back on track in paris!

[lfish]

Damn this weekend, sunday, I'm in paris, but the price is a little bit to high (26,5 euro) for an unemployed.