After an eventful journey we arrive at the venue just as Dawes hit the stage. I am not one for support acts usually but Dawes are one of my favourite new bands so tonight promised to be a great double header. As usual they were excellent with a short 45 minute set joined variously by the MMJ guitarist Carl Broemel on sax and then Marcus Mumford for When My Time Comes. A mixed reception from the audience for Mr M but it didn’t detract from a band on the top of its form.
After a short turn around next up it’s My Morning Jacket. Jim James enters stage right to a cacophony of noise and lights looking like a dishevelled Bobby from ‘Sons of Anarchy’ with his wild mass of hair dressed in some form of wizard jacket. There’s no greeting to the crowd and it’s straight into ‘Wordless Chorus’. Over here supporting their excellent new album each song melts into the next with barely a let up. There’s no time for banter and the pace of the show is relentless.
The twin guitar play between James and Broemel is incredible and they rock like the proverbial …… and none more so than when James gets the Flying V out. There’s a slight dip in the show with ‘Steam Engine’ and an elongated ‘Only Memories Remain’ but they’re back with a bang with a five song encore that shakes the Empire to its roots. Taylor Goldsmith and Marcus Mumford join the band for one song that just adds to tidal wave of sound that drowns us downstairs.
It’s exhausting watching these guys go for it and the drummer is completely soaked after his monumental efforts over the past two hours behind his double size kit. James a man of little or no spoken words with the audience saved his incredible voice for the songs.
It’s homeward bound, ears ringing for what was a classic rock gig