Review | Neo-Southern Evening Jacket Rock, in the Right Place 

My Morning Jacket (MMJ) ranks highly on the short list of bands with a deep, site-sound relationship with the Santa Barbara Bowl. This theory was validated once again when the band, born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1998, paid yet another welcome visit to our al fresco music temple at the corner of Anapamu and Milpas. The bond just seems to be getting stronger with the years.

Over the course of a good vibing thrill ride of a concert, spanning its discography up through the recent album Is (yes, simply Is), leader Jim James repeatedly expressed his awe for the venue and its scenic splendor and views. The epic moments and pyrotechnical light show–synced elements engaged in some extra sensory — and even spiritual? — accord with the space.

At one point deep into the invitingly sprawling set, the band lounged around in an extended reggae-tinged groove coated with Grateful Dead–ish airs. Suddenly, it felt as if they were channeling the spirit of the mystical Jerry Garcia hand sculpture down in the Bowl’s Jerry Garcia Glen. It seemed as if Garcia’s legendary middle finger nub rubbed off on their musical spirits.

But to lump MMJ in with the jam-jiggered world of the Dead and Phish would be a mistake, or at least a half-truth. A more proper parallel would be with fellow Southern rock legend the Allman Brothers, who similarly kept a free-floating balance of song forms and improv stretch-outs. MMJ, though, has created a neo-Southern rock sound of its own devising, taking detours into aspects of R&B, hook-based pop, country-folk sauce, and space-out side tripping as they go.

The evening got off to a fine start with an earlier than usual opening set by the new NYC-based band Melt (not to be confused with the Japanese art punk band Melt-Banana). The tasteful yet powerful-when-required vocalist Veronica Stewart-Frommer seized the spotlight from her solid bandmates, stylistically weaving from Fleetwood Mac–ish pop hooks to tougher stuff late in the set. Stewart-Frommer later showed up for some right harmony vocal cameos with Jim James during the MMJ set, on the country train groover “Golden,” and the dreamy soul ballad “Here in Spirit,” from James’s solo album Eternally Even.

In fact, the headliner also followed a general looser-as-she-goes policy in its generous two-and-a-half-hour show. Kicking off with “Anytime,” from the 2005 album Z, and rolling into the pop treat “I Can Hear Your Love,” and the Bowl-friendly sprawler “Circuital,” the band wended through a bevy of compact song structures, opening up to the muse of jam later on.

MMJ is still going strong, live and as a forward-moving creative entity, as evidenced by their new album, from which the Bowl set included the punch drunk, syncopated rocker “Half a Lifetime” (sample lyric, touching on their musical mission: Please take a message and put it to a beat/And try to cross over/From the country to the street”). As a concert-closing blowout, the band launched into its slamming hit from the 2003 album It Still Moves, “One Big Holiday,” a fitting finale for their own kind of holiday musical brew.

MMJ has achieved that desirable quality of having a self-defining musical sound, which borrows from and alludes to historical models while maintaining a unique in-house recipe. Their music, to quote the cryptic new album title, simply is. And it is something very special when encountered at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Long may they return.