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Review: My Morning Jacket dazzles in Miami


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— The first time I saw My Morning Jacket they were headlining at the Langerado Music Festival in 2007. It turned out to be one of the best performances of the three-day outdoor festival.

Seeing the Louisville, Ky., group at the Fillmore in Miami Beach Friday night was a completely different experience. The hall is refined, ready for symphony orchestras and Broadway touring companies — all of which stands in marked contrast to MMJ, which cultivates long hair and an avid hippie following. It felt, well, a little through the looking glass.

The five-man band has been around for 10 years, building a huge following in most of the Southern states. Last week’s show, however, was their first appearance in Miami.

It was a surprisingly mixed crowd that night. The fragrance of Ck1 perfume mingled with the aroma of patchouli; Jimmy Choo stilettos stood alongside battered Converses and Birkenstock sandals. As is often the case, the standing-only pit was packed with die-hard fans, MMJ veterans discussing the essential differences between seeing the band in the anarchic chaos of an outdoor festival and watching them perform in an indoor auditorium.

Regardless of the venue, My Morning Jacket delivered more than two hours of music played with amazing energy and virtually no breaks. Frontman Jim James appeared on stage in a Dracula-like cape and surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke. His long, curly hair bounced around his face to the beat of the music. His powerful voice boomed, as strong as ever, and filled the auditorium. Before long, people in the sit-down areas were dancing in the aisles. It might have been their first time in Miami, but they sure won the audience over in a hurry.

“Our mental landscape has changed forever,” said James of their first gig in the Floridian metropolis. The crowd went wild.

Mixing the older, beloved tunes from the band’s breakthrough album “Z” with the newer, funkier songs from the recently released “Evil Urges,” My Morning Jacket kept the crowd entertained for more than two hours, taking only a short break in between the first and second set.

The grand finale, a powerful, long version of “One Long Holiday” (from their 2003 album “It Still Moves”), was the perfect ending to a great show.

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