My Morning Jacket - Madison Square Garden - New York City - 12/31/08

New Year's Eve is usually the most overrated holiday of the year. People stress out about trying to do something "extra special" but the payoff is rarely worth it. I finally had one that lived up to the hype.

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I've liked this band for a few years, but 2008 became the year I became borderline infatuated with them. My fiance can attest to me probably making more "Devil's Three-Way" jokes (involving me, her and Jim James) than is comfortable.

I'm not going to spend a ton of time on the concert itself because I'm almost positive that these guys are incapable of putting on a bad show and since it'll probably read alot like the one from September, so I'll just mention a few highlights:

-HORN SECTION!!!

-I'm not a huge covers guy but the Marvin Gaye song with Nicole Atkins was really good.

-I feel very fortunate that I've seen MMJ twice and both times I got Phone West West and Cobra. The first time I saw them they played Cobra and I honestly had never heard it before. I was more prepared this time around and it is a great song to hear live.

-Get Down On It cover. It's my 2nd favorite disco song so I got a kick out of hearing it covered.

-The countdown, confetti and balloons. It just looked cool.

-You'd be hard pressed to find a better closer than One Big Holiday.

Biggest regret of the night was not picking up a concert poster. Limited production and now going for a few hundred on eBay. That's not even mentioning that it's just a sweet poster.

Setlist (from the MMJ Website)

1. Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield)

2. Evil Urges

3. Off The Record

4. Gideon

5. The Way That He Sings

6. Thank You Too!

7. I'm Amazed

8. Golden

9. Librarian

10. You're All I Need (Marvin Gaye)

11. Express Yourself (Charles Wright)

12. What A Wonderful Man

13. Lay Low

14. Phone Went West

15. Look At You

16. Dondante

17. Smoking From Shootin

18. Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt.2

19. Run Thru

20. The Wanderer (Dion)

21. Dancefloors

22. Magheetah

New Years!!!

23. Celebration (Kool & The Gang)

24. Get Down On It (Kool & The Gang)

25. Wordless Chorus

26. Highly Suspicious

27. Cobra

28. Islands In The Stream (Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers)

29. Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke)

30. Cold Sweat (James Brown)

31. Anytime
32. One Big Holiday
33. Auld Lang Syne

Special Guests:

NYE Horns (2, 3, 11, 12, 20, 21, 23, 24, 28 , 29, 30)

Will Johnson (8)

Nicole Atkins (10, 28)