[Illustration by ALEX FINE]
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Opening for a band that draws seven or eight times as many people as you do seems like a no-brainer. After all, if you win over just a quarter of the crowd, you’ve more than doubled your draw in this particular market. The downside is that nobody shows up for the opening act at The Big Rock Show. Never have, never will. Tuesday night at the Mann Center was no exception. Neko Case opened for My Morning Jacket and delivered a game but faintly glum set to mostly empty seats – too bad, because she is worthy of a capacity crowd. Those seats were completely filled with stubbly, red-eyed young men, and the women who go to concerts with them, by the time My Morning Jacket took the stage and kick-started a sweaty, ebullient, three-hour hoedown of Southern-fried beard-rock, soul power, and even a little reggae carpetbaggery. Ten years on, the band’s star continues to rise. The last time through it played Penn’s Landing, and before that the TLA, and the days when it played the Khyber are many beards ago, back before the truce between indie rock and Jam Band Nation was declared at the Bonnaroo Line. The reason is simple: Live, My Morning Jacket is an unstoppable force of nature. MORE