There’s a good chance the roof may be leaking at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee after My Morning Jacket attempted to tear the roof off the joint this Tuesday. After seeing them open for Pearl Jam in Toronto and Chicago as well as their brief set in Chicago for Lollapalooza I was looking forward to seeing the band in a more intimate venue.

I found it disappointing that this was actually my first show at the Riverside Theater after living in Milwaukee for over seven years. One thing that was evident right away was the incredible lighting that MMJ had for this show. In some instances it reminded me a lot of the lighting used when I saw Radiohead in Chicago.

The ability for My Morning Jacket to have the entire headlining time allowed me to finally see the band where they rightfully belong. All of the previous times I’d seen this band they had been limited to either 45 minute or 1 hour sets. With a full two hours to work with the band is free to extend any jam in any direction as they see during their performance and they definitely took advantage of that in Milwaukee. In fact, one of my reservations about my favorite track, “Off The Record” on last year’s fantastic (and MoB favorite) album, Z is that the song ends with this two minute jam that just seems out of place. In a live setting they managed to make me understand that part and really enjoy it now as I’ve listened to the album since.

I really don’t think it’s possible to go wrong with a My Morning Jacket performance. As long as Jim James is behind the microphone I’m going to be pretty willing to listen to anything that’s going on. With such a strong back catalogue, my only complaint would be that they don’t dip into that reserve of greatness often enough, and instead choose to focus only on their most recent tunes leaving behind a lot of my favorites off earlier records.