My Morning Jacket’s seven-night run at San Francisco’s The Fillmore continued last night and, once again, the group dotted their setlist with mix of surprise guests, song debuts and choice Grateful Dead nods.
Just under halfway through the evening, MMJ debuted their version of “Come Again,” a track off frontman Jim James’ new album, Wowed Out, which was released this summer. It was the second tune from that standout set James has introduced into his main group’s repertoire during the extended, multi-night Fillmore run, following “Lost Child” on Saturday.
A few songs later, My Morning Jacket invited out onetime opening act and fellow ATO artist Grace Cummings to assist on a cover of AC/DC’s “Ride On,” a number she covered with the band last year, as well as MMJ’s first take on the Dead’s classic “Scarlet Begonias.” The latter song joins a long list of Dead catalog material that the musicians have already performed during their current series, including “Sugaree,” “Brown-Eyed Women” “Franklin’s Tower” and the Dead’s arrangement of “Me and Bobby McGee.”
The surprises continued from there. At the top of their encore, My Morning Jacket nodded to the evening’s green color theme by debuting the Sesame Street classic “Bein’ Green,” the second Kermit The Frog number James has made his own. (He famously performed “Rainbow Connection” live a handful of times as a solo act, including with Kermit himself at Newport Folk in 2019; MMJ also contributed “Our World” to the tribute set The Muppets: The Green Album and worked on a few potential cuts for the 2011 film The Muppets, which they discussed performing in, though they ended up not getting the role and reworked the music for 2011’s Circuital.) James also noted from the stage that he was inspired to cover Kermit after seeing a picture of the Muppet on a Fillmore flyer.
After that, Cummings returned to the stage one final time to help MMJ debut a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Over My Head,” which originally appeared on the lauded band’s 1975 self-titled set. My Morning Jacket then closed the night on their own with “Slow Slow Tune,” “Lay Low” and “One Big Holiday.”
The group’s residency at The Fillmore will resume tomorrow and continue through Sunday.
