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Last Sunday night, I was able to witness one of the greatest live shows I can recall seeing when My Morning Jacket hit the stage at the Knitting Factory in downtown Boise. After the dust had settled following their almost 2-and-a-half hour set, we had witnessed a superb blend of psychedelic rock, ripping guitar solos, tender ballads and everything in between, for a complete mind-melt of a show. Playing tracks from their newest album ‘Circuital’, their best (in my opinion) album ‘Z’ and some oldies but goodies from back in the day, MMJ brought the house down song after song and didn’t relent for one moment throughout the performance. Even the slower songs seemed to have a majestic quality to them, building and building with layers of guitar and keys, until the crowd was so entranced that we were all bouncing and moving in one fluid motion to the rhythm.

Jim James is one of the best frontmen in music today, and he did not disappoint on Sunday evening. Donning a giant purple cape as the band took the stage, James had the crowd in the palm of his hand for the whole show, jumping onto the drum riser several times throughout the night, wildly flailing around the stage during his solos, and orchestrating the massive wall of sound that penetrated each member of the crowd to their core.

Below is a snippet of the final song of the set, ‘Gideon’, before they came back out for a jammed-out 2 song encore of crowd favorites ‘Phone Went West’ and ‘One Big Holiday’. This is a small section of music and lights that will give a glimpse into the feel and tone the band displayed for the entire evening, and made us all hope their next stop back in Boise is not too far down the road. Enjoy.

(click here for complete setlist)

Last night, after waiting for about 13 years, I finally got to see one of my favorite bands, Wilco. Hailing from the great city of Chicago, I just kept missing them every time they played a show close (or not so close, as it were) to where I was living at the time. Finally, they decided to come through Boise again for the first time since 2008, and it was a great experience all around. I hadn’t even heard their latest album until yesterday, and I have to say it is pretty rad. Their style manages to change slightly with each record, while still keeping their famous sound on each new musical adventure.

The setlist last night had a great mix of oldies and newies(?), and lots of stuff in between, as you can see. (thanks to setlist.fm for the info!)

Jeff Tweedy was fairly subdued during the first half of the show, but started to open up in the latter portion. He made fun of the people who were up in the hills listening to the show for free, and said he wouldn’t have paid 50 bucks to see Wilco, either. He called out a guy who was smoking a doobie in the front row, and when the guy raised his hands to let everyone know who he was, Tweedy said, “Dude, put your hands down, you’re gonna get arrested.” He thanked the crowd on several occasions, and kept remarking about how beautiful Idaho was (“We’re going to play some depressing songs in a beautiful environment”) and how the crowd was great.

As usual, I had the iPhone camera on the ready – here are some images from last night’s spectacular show…

The weather was perfect, nice and sunny with a cooling evening after the sun went down, the band was on fire, the crowd was raucous, and the surroundings were gorgeous (as always at the Botanical Gardens here in good old Boise, Idaho). Thanks again, Wilco, for a great time. Don’t wait 4 years to come back again…

I have been trying my hand at shooting pictures at shows as of late, using my trusty iPhone 4, and have come up with a couple of gems. Enjoy.