 | | My Morning Jacket |
As Richard Swift took the stage in support of My Morning Jacket, it looked like that might be the case at the Academy 2. Not that the half of the capacity that missed his set really would have been disappointed to not be in there. Swift is essentially Ed Harcourt played by Jack Black, a wild-haired troubadour who does a line in country-fuelled indie rock that is nothing new and, sadly, nothing inspiring. If MMJ had peeped out of the dressing room during his set, they’d have been forgiven for thinking that they wouldn’t be playing to many. So it must have come as a surprise to them when they leapt on stage to find a heaving sweating mass of Mancunians packing the venue before them. Recent line-up changes haven’t diminished the band’s ability to create tumultuous walls of sonic wonder or, it seems, their ability to have a laugh. "This is a venue with a lot of mystery, a lot of history and a lot of… dysentery!" grinned frontman Jim James from under his mop of hair, much to the pleasure of the audience, before launching his bandmates into more great slabs of their psychedelic country rock. With a live album about to come out, it was imperative that MMJ showed just how good a touring band they can be, and, barring a few noodles (they really do need to learn where to end some of their tunes), they showed it in spades. Inevitably, the highlights came from the band’s wonderous It Still Comes album, with a pin-drop silence simply wondering at the beauty of Golden and a huge ovation greeting One Big Holiday, though a swirling workthrough of the weirdly reggae-tinged Off The Record, from last year's Z, garnered its fair share of smiles and cheers. "I’m glad we graduated from Academy 3," proclaimed James towards the end of a sprawling glory of a set. With a crowd of this size outside of term-time, it shouldn’t be long until they’re moving up a venue size again. | 
