Dallas show review (into the madness)

[George_Savage]

This may take awhile but on the other hand my computer's giving me
fits now - entire messages are just disappearing for no reason before I can
send them, so it may be about time to crash. I hope not.
Going back to Thursday night, my friend Brad and I worked on the
packet/discs that we were hoping to present to the band. I had been working
on my story for a month but it still wasn't finished. I worked hard on it
all last week at night after work. We got to Thursday and it still wasn't
finished, much less proofread. I wrote for maybe an hour and sent it to
Sitter (Brad). I drove out to his house (eight or
nine miles) and went about the process of proofreading it and getting it
spaced correctly. For some reason the paragraphs and lines were all messed
up. It ended up being a bleery-eyed six hour affair. He did a lot of
good work
on my 'Z' rating. I didn't even attempt to proofread it; The 'story'
ended up being 22 pages long; he printed four copies of it.
He had interviewed me as Hal 9000 (doing the interviews...yeh, I'm
a freak!)...so Hal asked all of these questions ( he used a computer
generated voice that we called Hal after the computer in 2001 since that's
one of Jim's favorite movies. That ended up being almost three
hours of nonsense!
About 2 AM we still needed a title. He has suggested
Into the Madness ( a take-off on Into the Woods since I love that song so
much, and a reference to my MMJ madness/
fanaticism). I wasn't sure about it, we threw a bunch of other stuff out
there. I was thinking I'd just steal a line from one of their songs like
when I rated It Still Moves and called it 'wrapped up in your mystery' - we
were playing Oxen over
and over and I told him that earlier this week that I was listening to the
9/17/04 Dallas show and realized that they
played Oxen to kick off the show and they followed it with Golden and I
thought of 'the Golden Ox" from the Bible. At
least it's in the film The Ten Commandments, I assume it's in the Bible -
I'm a believer but I'm not that well read.
So Sitter says "I think you have yourself a title there" -
so we talked a little bit more about it. Sitter is an incredibly
talented artiste. One of his two dozen or so nicknames is
Artboy! He knows his way around a computer, let's just say that. Earlier
this week he told me that he had decided on the artwork for the interview
discs. The first disc was a picture of Hal 9000, the second a picture of a
grizzly bear, and the third a picture of Low Dog, the Lakota Sioux warrior.
He made the labels and pressed them on the discs. But he's also been into
making T-shirt labels and do-it-yourself
T-shirts.
He found a picture of two oxen on the internet somewhere, I
think. He knows about the ridiculosity and the legend (made up in my own
red-eyed mind) that I am Jim's
dad. It's a long story, totally absurd - but neither Jim nor any of the
others seem to mind. Johnny used to call me Uncle
Low Dog circa '02-03. So he put "world's greatest" above
the oxen and 'dad' below it. I insist that he now has to make a T-shirt
for Jim with the same design but with 'son'
on it.
He's busy getting that stuff done while I frantically
try to proofread my story and fix it. Even though I found dozens of
mistakes and corrected them, I was too rushed
to get them all. I'm sure they'll understand! So we decide
to add 'the world's greatest dad' to the title of the write-up,
making the whole title: "Into the Madness (the story of the
Golden Ox and the world's greatest dad)" - what can I say,
we're easily amused. So we work on this stuff (mainly
Sitter working and me just being stupid and drinking). Oh
yeh, we also had to finish Disc 2 of the interview.
As you know, Jim's a funny dude on stage. He
says some pretty funny stuff. I hurriedly put together a few
of my favorite bits that he's used over the years. Like at the
4/23/03 Nashville show where he encouraged the crowd to
vote for MMJ on Nashville Star. And where he says that At
Dawn was written "this month" (Sept 02) and a series of
clues in the song would reveal Tom's birthdate and Social
Security number. And that they'll soon be doing an exclusive
Cobra only tour. And other stuff that's totally Jim. So we
got done with that and I left Sitter's about 4 AM
I wanted to try to meet some of the kids down in Dallas -
the crowd included people from Oklahoma I read here. I hope y'all found
Monica's. I've eaten there but it's been a few years back and I like the
food. Yeh, I was going
to introduce myself as the world's oldest living My Morning Jacket fanatic!
I slept four hours and I had to get up for awhile.
Luckily I had taken off Friday and was able to sleep another
four hours and I got up around 3 in the afternoon. I got all
of my stuff together and as usual, I was running late. I took
my little brother Steve to the show. We went by Sitter's to get the last
packet and we heading to Dallas finally. There was a long traffic jam (38
minutes, two miles traveled) near
Rockwall. Ugh. My friends Terry and Wendy had seen MMJ
in Austin and of course were totally blown away by them - they've been fans
for four years and were there for the 'date which shall live in infamy' show
(10/25/01, Austin). We got down there about 9 or so. The opening act was
playing.
Fairly soon Will Johnson got up and started playing. He played a few new
songs and a few old ones. Scott of Centro-matic joined him on three or
four. He talked about jet
lag since he had flown from Europe to Austin and was beat.
MMJ had let him sleep on their bus up to Dallas.
For his final song he invited his friends from Louisville up
and they all did that song off Vultures Await
called Just to Know What you've been Dreaming. It was
sublime.
They go off the stage then it's time for the main event
probably 20-25 minutes later. The crowd by now was swelled to near full
capacity. Even at the back of the venue it was crowded. It won't be long
before there's no way they'll be able to play to crowds of 500-600; I'm kind
of surprised they played here this time but maybe Dallas doesn't have a
more appropriate place, I don't know.
The lights go off and Wordless Chorus starts. If you
have been lucky enough to see any of this tour then you know how it goes
here. Darkness to begin with and then a
series of lights flashing when he sings the wordless chorus.
The crowd was totally into it already. They must've had some kind of bass
machine cranked to 11 because I could
literally feel the bass flowing through my blue jeans! (insert
your own joke here, but it's true).
They continued on with It Beats 4 U; it's a masterpiece.
I'm reminded of another funny thing Jim said
once about IB4U - at the 6/20/04 Nashville show he told the crowd that this
song would be an experiment in subliminal
communication. And to follow his movements to try to figure
it out - every time he stepped to the right twice, or back once,
or forward three steps it relayed a secret message and "I
hope that you can figure it out!" They got 'the hit' out of the way after
this one, I think. One Big Holiday is still their most
famous song, I guess. Then I think it followed with The Way
that he Sings, long a favorite song of mine.
I don't have the set list in front of me but the show
continued like most of them. Just awesome and spiritual
music - loud rock, expertly sung and played. The band seemed to really
enjoy playing for us. I guess that even if
they didn't they'd at least try their best to not just go through the
motions. They either feed off the crowd or they do a good acting job.
Some of my friends don't like what they call MMJ's "showboating" - I just
think that it's their style and they've always done it. I'd rather see a
band seem to
be enjoying themselves and appreciative of a raucous audience than a bump on
a log of a performer.
I just checked the setlist - Golden, unfortunately,
presented us with that realization that a lot of people were
talking through the show. I'm just an old fogey at 43, and
there's absolutely nothing one can do about it but it's still a shame in my
book. Especially talking through MMJ, the live
show being a sort of religious experience for me! I mean, would you talk
during the preacher's prayer? Would you talk throughout the Star Spangled
Banner? Oh well, we all
know it's impossible to get what you want all the time at rock
show (or anywhere else, really). They tore it up, of course.
Will sang with them on Golden, it was beautiful. Those
AAOOAs (angelic aural onslaught of 'ahs') at the end send
chills down the spine, don't they?
The talking continued through I think I'm going to Hell,
the next song - I figure that maybe some people just weren't
acquainted with the song yet. I saw a flame or light near my
left foot and I figured the security was pushing their way through again to
bust the video tapers; in actuality, it was a
lighter that was lighting the last third of a marijuana cigarette, popularly
known as a "joint". I just thought about
that line in The Graduate when Mr. Robinson asked Benjamin what he'd been
doing lately and Ben said that
he wasn't doing much of anything, just taking it easy.
"Nothing wrong with that - I'd do the same thing if I could!"
I wondered to myself "how long can Jim's voice hold
up?" I mean he's only 27 and he's in good shape but isn't
this screaming eventually going to affect his voice and force
him to curtail the louder screams? I guess he's going to do
what he wants to do until he can't do it any longer, huh? Noone ever
screams anymore, anyway!
At the opening piano notes, the crowd let out a large
cheer for What a Wonderful Man. They played ( and I guess
they've been doing it this way live on this tour) the last verse
(or the ending chorus, whatever you call it) over and over.
That is, the song clocked in about about 3:30 and on the record it's only
2:17, I think. It was awesome. Jim jumped
around a lot on this one but I think he basically jumps around on all of the
rocking numbers.
Lay Low: DAMN!!! What a song. What a jam at the
end. I'm positive that I am not the only fan who's gotten what
my old friend Jimmy "Sport" Faires calls 'explosive rushes'.
That's when the music is so good and you get this incredible
rush of euphoria, it's almost like you're on a higher plane.
That jamming for two to three minutes at the end is some
damn good stuff! Bo's stuff on piano alone is worthy of perpetual praise,
and Jim and Carl doing their thing on guitar is flat-out awesome (wish I had
another adjective here
but I'm in a hurry, this is turning into a long review).
I recently thought that MMJ's music should be somehow
transformed into a drug that you can inject or take
orally. Just bottle what these musical geniuses come up with and perform and
put in pill form and noone will ever need
beer or pot or amphetamines or X or anything! Clerk: how
many I help you? The Knowers: "I'll take a bottle of extra
strength My Morning Jacket in capsule form, please!"
Sitter was in the back with my brother Steve aka
Ron aka Little Cracker aka Jim's uncle. He (Sitter) was
slightly surprised to hear it and I was, too. I think he likes
it more than me but he's always rated DF over Mageetah,
which in my book is pure madness - or just a different opinion, maybe - I
guess it depends on how much you want
to argue at the moment!
Anyway, it's hard to argue with DF's greatness. I've
always liked it and it's a crowd favorite for sure. The next one, Off the
Record's another crowd favorite. When I got the album it was probably my
favorite. Obviously that ending jam's a thing of beauty, too.
Dondante was great, too. I think they probably do
this one at every show. I was kind of surprised that they didn't
play Gideon, but you can't do 'em all, I know. When Carl was playing the
saxophone at the end there was a quiet
stillness in the crowd. Occasionally there would be the
typical 'whoo!' - Carl's solo here on sax is another thing of
beauty. The first night when I saw when in Atlanta (10/6/05)
I thought I heard a sax but I couldn't even see Carl. They
typically keep the lights off him when he plays it, or it's at least a dim
light. My buddy Matt in Hotlanta verified that indeed I was hearing a
saxophone and so the next night in
Knoxville I made sure and watched for it. During the solo
Jim was over in the back right corner of the stage playing
with his back to the crowd. I kept thinking that he was either
1) doing his best Stuart Sutcliffe imitation or 2) feeling the need to
relieve himself on stage! (just kidding about this)
Run Thru closed out the first set. I haven't always
been a big fan of it - I mean I love it, but it's definitely in my
bottom half of favorite songs on ISM. But we all know that even the
'worst' MMJ song on the album is usually twice as good as the best song on
the majority of albums by other
artists. I think that the kids like this one a lot and that they always
have. It's a rocker, for sure - that middle part is all
over the place. Patrick's drumming in there is phenomenal
but it's really phenomenal all the time, right? They left to a
screaming horde of thankful patrons and within a couple of
minutes were right back at it.
They came back out to screaming fans and they
go into what I thought at first to be Into the Woods. Within a
few seconds of strumming, though, I realized, "OXEN!!" -
maybe our T-shirts psychically willed it to be played? Or maybe I have
pestered my son long enough for him to realize that it's one of my songs and
hey - for those of us
who have children one things certain. If you hound them
long enough to take out the trash or to do the chores that they're supposed
to do, eventually they'll get off their butts and complete their tasks!
The only bummer and the worst part of the entire
show was this fucking idiot who was four people to my left
kept screaming out "Play 'The Bear'!" He yelled it four or five
times and by the last time they were already 20 or 30 seconds into Oxen.
Sorry Charley, they chose another animal,
now shut your pie hole!!! I am 99% sure that I even said
"shut up!" to this dunce. I don't know that it helped, either.
Anyway, they played it a little bit differently than from
the only other previous time (9/17/04, Dallas). It seemed like there were
less instruments at the beginning, I don't know. But Jim's voice on this
song is one of those tangible
things that factor into my belief that there is a higher being.
Maybe that's putting too much into it, but I'm constantly amazed at the
melodies that he comes up with and the way
in which they're communicated and performed. Sitter said
Friday that Oxen was his favorite.
Hal 9000 aka Hal the hard liquor robot was fixated
on the Oxen. He asked "have you ever seen a live ox?" during the interview.
He even went out of his way to give it's
formal definition from the dictionary! Sitter, in turn, found
several pictures of oxen on the 'net and he used it for the
cover art for the packages that we presented to the band on
Friday. There was even talk of getting a Chinese calendar
since the ox is present on it, but that little bit of madness
fell through. Thanks to the guy who posted those lyrics to
Oxen - it's a song for the ages, and it's easily in my top ten
MMJ songs. Have any of you ever tried to rate all of the songs? That was
on the agenda but I ran out of time and
I can't find my Sandman discs now. I would probably put
Weeks go by Like Days up there in the top ten, top 15 at
least. But I can tell that it'll be like rating the top 40 Beatles
songs - it's painfully hard to do when you get to that number.
I think the highest that And Your Bird Can Sing ever got was
36....but I digress. Anyway, I thanked Jim for Oxen after the show and he
said 'yeh, we played it for ya' - whatever the
reasons, we're just happy as larks that we heard it live
again.
Next up: O is the one that is Real - what can be said
about it? The first time I ever heard it live was in Houston
on June 10, 2002. I was surprised that they played it because there was so
much going on vocally, but they pulled it off. It's one of Sitter's and
about three years ago
he said that it was his favorite song and that "It just has a certain kind
of feel to it!"
Anytime's a crowd favorite, it's a great song. I rated
it last when I initially got the album, now it's probably 7 or
8 depending on the day of the week. Matt in Hotlanta made the comment
about how hilarious it was for Jim to reference
Madonna and at the time I hadn't even made those lines
out! One of the greatest things about Z is that almost every one of
these songs sound entirely different. They are
similar in ways but they stand up on their own.
They closed with Mageetah. Big Crowd Favorite,
and with good reason - top 10 or 15, for sure - now I really
need to do that rating because the only one that I know for sure is that The
Bear for me is their best song of all-time and I decided about a year or so
ago that it will be played at my funeral. And with the length of this
ridiculosity my funeral
could be fairly soon. But remember what Billy from Six Feet
Under said: 'if you scramble the letters in 'funeral' you come
up with 'real fun'!"
The show was phenomenal, sublime, great,
awesome, and any of dozens of other descriptions that I am
not aware of. Hell, it's live MMJ, right!?!?
They turned on the lights and the crowd slowly
filtered out. My friends and I talked about the show afterwards. Some of
them were bitching, maybe even a bit
forlorn, about the crowd that was here on this night. I have
talked to similar older fans that pine for the old days of 100
people in the crowd. Hey, I kind of wish that it were possible,
too, in a way. But it's not. They're only going to get bigger
which means 'bully for them' - more fame, more money, they're still going to
do things on their terms, I'm sure. These friends of mine were commenting
about how at least
60% of the crowd were just there to be seen and to talk on
their cell phones. I'm sure there were a few of those types
but what are you gonna do? It's inevitable. If you get too
bothered about that element of concert-goer, then I suppose
that you can stay home and listen to your CDs in the comfort of your living
room, right? The live MMJ experience is worth
a lot to me, though. It's worth being around these scene-sters and you know
that some of these cats and gals are going discover MMJ's brilliance and buy
all the albums and become true fans. If they don't then they'll just buy a
ticket
to the next big thing and talk on their cell phones at that show!
Well, I gotta close here but I must finish the story
first. We waited around for the band to come out. Sitter and his wife
Dondi aka the 'tender aka Croc left about 20
or 30 minutes after the show. Our other friends, Mr Clem
and Nora Lee, went to the bar with some old friends. Ron
and I were just waiting around and asked some members
of management about trying to see the band so we could
talk Oxen, Bear, Cobra, and give them these gifts. 45 minutes later we
finally got a foot in the door. Earlier we had been directed to their
manager and he said that he wasn't sure where they were but they we were
more than
welcome to wait and that eventually they'd come out.
I saw Will and chatted briefly with him - gave him
one of the packets that we'd prepared and then I spotted
Patrick. Thanked him for the music and the comedy and
gave him the other three. I commented that now that Jim's
hair it cut that he's probably more of Cousin It clone than Jim. He said
something like "yeh, I'm Cousin It's brother!"
Anyway, they basically know that I'm nuts and as my old
friend Gary 'Gray' DiBello used to say, 'anything for a laugh!'
I also made the point that I regarded him as a bit of a maestro with those
drumsticks. Have you noticed that he
kind of 'conducts' the crowd at times? He was a gracious
recipient of BS.
Anyway, so he tells me that Jim's inside right around
the corner so I go back in there. Ron and I wait on Jim to
finish his conversation with another fan. Meanwhile, Carl
has come back into the club. We introduce ourselves and
give our proper thanks to him. He's a gracious dude and
then Jim if free for the pestering! Jim says hello to us and
I ask him "you remember Steve, don't you?" and he's really
nice to us. I know that they're in a hurry and that they want
to get back to Austin soon. I did learn, and I am sure that
it was probably said here by now that the Houston show
from 11/19 was cancelled because of their Austin City Limits
taping from earlier tonight, 11/20. I can't keep up with all of
the threads here but I assume that's common knowledge.
Mr Clem and Myrna Lee told me that our buddy Lance aka
LD3 was going to be there tonight - Lucky Dog!
Anyway, I have to get to the point, so I thank him
for Oxen and all of the songs and just for being such a
badass in general. And I hope that he wont' mind me telling this bit of
my warped insanity on the list but a bunch
of people already know that "I ain't right" - anyway, I say to Jim, "you
know I'm your dad, right?"" and he says something
like "yeh" or "yes" and I show him that Oxen T-shirt that I
was wearing (World's Greatest Dad) and I present him with
his own Oxen T as "World's Greatest Son" - Sitter kept talking that Seinfeld
episode when a 'world's best dad' T
shirt entered the mix of comedy - I think that Lloyd Bridges
and Jerry's dad argued about who was the world's best
dad? So he kind of laughs about it and I push the envelope
of acceptance/restraining order needed/straight jacket needed and I ask him
if I can take a picture of him holding
up the shirt. He was gracious about it, so I asked Carl to
take one of Jim and me and they agreed and so it was
a roaring success in the annals of Low Dog Ridiculosity
and Hero Worship. Then I told 'em about my overzealous
praise about MMJ to a friend a few years ago. I said something
like "they may play the Super Bowl one year they're so good"
and he says "they're not playing the Super Bowl *this* year -
no wait - they're *never* playing the Super Bowl!" But now
this cat's one of their biggest fans. Then Carl said something
like "I'll be happy if we get to play the Ice Capades!" That
was funny. I realize that most of you probably
think I'm insane. I might be, but noone's proven that yet.
As I used to tell the band, "no punches thrown, no restraining orders
issued!"
Their musical catalog ranks in the upper
stratosphere for me. I think I said in that last write-up that
we need to call 'em King Midas because everything they
do turns to gold. As Letterman says, "there is no 'off' position for the
genius switch!" It's more than the hype, as
most of us here probably know. It's about being real musicians and it's
about Jim's amazing gift and the band
members' gifts of relaying that music to our ears, right?!?
Where are my MMJ pills? I need a fix! Thanks to those who got through
this tripe; I just felt like writing about what
we witnessed two days ago but I didn't think it'd go on for a
half-day!!
I am really happy for the guys and I am really
jealous of and proud for the Louisville people that will
be witnessing what is surely going to be one of the greatest
MMJ shows in their history in what, four days? My buddy
Matt will be there and countless others of you will be, too.
Kudos to the band for what their music means to me and
for thousands/tens of thousands of others. I am too tired
and delirious to proofread this, please forgive the errors if
you made it through this. Thanks to Sitter for all of the help
with the latest write-up and his brilliance as Hal 9000, the
hard liquor robot. Peace to all you beautiful creatures.
God bless all of you.

Low Dog
"goodnight everybody...everybody...everywhere..." -The
Beatles, 1968

[sweatboard]

Nice!  I need a copy of the Hal interview.  

[EC]

Beautiful.  Holy crap.  What a great father!!  :D

[Dee.]

Great write-up, Low Dog.  Sounds like you truly made it a night to remember.  :)

[havibulin]

That has to be the longest post i've ever read. I hope your a fast typer.
nevertheless...nice write up.

[CC]

great review, as always... thanks 'dad'

dallas visuals up in the gallery.

[tomEisenbraun]

sorry to be lame, but who's that that came out and joined the guys on stage?

[minton]

some of the centro-matic fellas (will johnson, scott danbom).

minton

[LaurieBlue]

Excellent LD - Thanks for writing that up.  Wish I was in KY!! :-)

Laurie