Photos: Kit Tincher
Words: Slade Rand
My Morning Jacket played an airy marathon set at Dillon Amphitheater this week to open its biennial summertime run through the mountains.
Jim James floated out in front of the band as the sun set in a hazy sky over Dillon Reservoir on Wednesday night. My Morning Jacket returned to the Colorado venue between the trees and the lake this week for its third show there since 2022, en route to a weekend stint down the road at Red Rocks.
My Morning Jacket is Tom Blankenship on bass, Patrick Hallahan on drums, Bo Koster on keyboards, Jim James on vocals and guitar and Carl Broemer on pedal steel. Carl also played guitar and saxophone in Dillon this week.
The band started its two-and-a-half-hour set with a rare duet; Veronica Stewart-Frommer joined Jim James for a take on ‘Golden’ off of 2003’s It Still Moves. Veronica and her band Melt had just finished their opening frame, where they played a new tune called ‘Surrender’ live for the first time.
My Morning Jacket played an upbeat, more twangy version of The Waterfall II highlight ‘Run It’ next. The quintet leaned into its Kentucky roots all night, with country-inspired outro jams on early album cuts ‘Just Because I Do’ and ‘If All Else Fails’.
During ‘Easy Morning Rebel,’ Bo mimicked a swampy harmonica sound on the keyboards and the band sailed through a slow breakdown. Carl then played saxophone on ‘First ‘Light’ after switching between pedal steel gospel and scorching guitar solos on other songs already.
“First I was an ancient, then I was an infant, now I am alive,” James belted on ‘First Light.’
Jim James vocally leaned into a rasp at times, and went low on tunes like the Prince-styled ‘Highly Suspicious’ late in the show. He alternated from a flying V guitar, an acoustic and other electric guitars through the 20-plus songs, and led a few like ‘Touch Me I’m Going to Scream, Pt. 1’ and ‘I Can Hear Your Love’ with just his transcendent voice.
He draws everyone’s eyes, theatrically reaching out and ad-libbing vocals for a spellbound crowd. He fronts the band in white heart sunglasses and a rainbow blazer.
During their take on At Dawn track ‘Just Because I Do,’ James built on his bandmates’ honky-tonk groove and dropped in bits of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’ before the song faded away.
Right around then, the orange sun sank behind Buffalo Mountain and Red Peak across the lake. My Morning Jacket turned to some mellower tunes from their first albums, like ‘Strangulation,’ before a standout version of ‘War Begun’ where James solo’d and spot beams traced him across the stage in silhouette.
The band dropped the tempo once more during ‘Slow Slow Tune,’ where Jim James held the crowd still and longtime lighting designer Marc Janowitz fired up the disco ball.
Jim James and the band closed the night with shout-along-tune ‘Mahgeetah,’ complete with Carl Broemer’s iconic guitar solo.
“Little we can do, we gonna see it through somehow,” James sang with everyone.
My Morning Jacket performs two nights at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO this weekend. See a full setlist from Dillon via My Morning Jacket setlist archive, and view a full gallery shot by Kit Tincher below.
My Morning Jacket
Dillon Amphitheater
Dillon, CO
8.13.2025
Golden *
Run It
I Can Hear Your Love
Penny for Your Thoughts
Easy Morning Rebel
Time Waited
Masterplan
First Light
Just Because I Do
Never in the Real World
Strangulation!
War Begun
If All Else Fails
Wasted
Slow Slow Tune
Beginning From the Ending
Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt.1
Highly Suspicious
Evil Urges
———-
River Road
Compound Fracture
Mahgeetah
* w/ Veronica Stewart-Frommer
After Midnight 
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