My Morning Jacket wrapped up their One Big Holiday destination event at the Moon Palace in Cancún, Mexico on Saturday with more special guests. MMJ welcomed Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson and singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten to help out on a pair of covers for the encore.
MMJ got things underway with “Wordless Chorus” of their 2008 album Z. The band continued with the title tracks to their 2011 and 2008 LPs Circuital and Evil Urges respectively. Following “Feel You,” “What A Wonderful Man” and “In Color,” MMJ delivered a cover of the Marvin Gaye classic “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Two cuts from the band’s 1999 debut album Tennessee Fire followed in a sped-up version of “If All Else Fails” and “The Dark.”
The main set also saw frontman Jim James performing “Bermuda Highway” from MMJ’s 2001 album At Dawn solo on acoustic guitar before heading into a debut of the John Lennon-penned Beatles song “Julia.” The band — bassist Tom Blankenship, guitarist Carl Broemel, drummer Patrick Hallahan and keyboardist Bo Koster — returned for “War Begun” and “Off The Record” before “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2” led into a bust out of “Cobra.” MMJ last played the song, which appears on 2002’s Chocolate and Ice EP, nearly four years ago to the day on March 3 at the 2018 One Big Holiday. The quintet capped off the main set with “Wasted.”
MMJ returned for the three-song encore which began with the debut of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers classic “Breakdown” with Eric D. Johnson. James and Johnson would trade verses before teaming up on the chorus ahead of a three-guitar jam from Broemel, Johnson and James. Eric then departed and MMJ welcomed Sharon Van Etten for a cover of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard “What The World Needs Now Is Love.” Finally, as they have with previous One Big Holidays, My Morning Jacket closed out the Mexico run with the destination event’s namesake song.
Watch audience-shot video from the show including “Breakdown” with Johnson below:
