Nathaniel Rateliffe and the Night Sweats and My Morning Jacket have been trekking up the eastern US with a late summer double-bill that has inched over into autumn.
Turning the corner into the last week of the tour, they took a daring swing up to Syracuse on September 24, testing the city’s notoriously unpredictable weather. Which, it turned out, was actually quite predictably miserable. Low 60s and a a nagging rain. But the hardy crowd was well prepared, and welcomed the rare chance at an early autumn outdoor pavilion concert, the last of the “summer” season at the Empower FCU Amphitheater at Lakeview.
The bands took comfort in the Upstate NY weather. Jim James proclaiming in a very Jim James way, “Feels good to have the winds of Syracuse blow through my soul!” and Nathaniel Rateliffe, while apologizing to the wet and cold fans out on the lawn, said “This is actually perfect weather for me.” Coming after a couple weeks in the hot South it was no wonder.
James and Rateliffe are two highly engaging front men, each able to corral both their bands and the audience into a symbiosis, while also managing the flow and energy with skill and ease. The similarly equipped bands, navigate similar but unique sounds. The Night Sweats approach Americana from a Soul Revue angle while My Morning Jacket comes at it with an updated Classic Rock focus. They each took their 90 allotted minutes and made the best of it, seamlessly flowing songs together with very little breaks. It was a match made in live music heaven, and the audience was taken on a fabulous three-hour journey.
My Morning Jacket took the stage first on this night. Jim James strode out in an all white suit, questionable after Labor Day as it was, but then again James has always played by his own rules. After searing takes on a couple newer tunes out of the gate, “Regular Scheduled Programming” and “Penny For Your Thoughts,” the band settled into the comfort of some well-worn material.
“Lay Low” arrived early with late set energy and a finishing run of “I’m Amazed,” “Gideon,” “Evil Urges,” “Mahgeetah,” and “Wordless Chorus” was a non-stop parade of hits, energizing the My Morning Jacket faithful while rousing the interest of the larger Night Sweats contingent. But the set hung it’s hat on a monster “I Will Sing You Songs” that was as beautiful as it was ferocious. It’s ending swirled for a long while in and out of a spacey interlude, building up and down out of formlessness for a secondary climax that didn’t quite explode before petering out altogether.
The relentless energy of My Morning Jacket is a tough act to follow, but Nathaniel Rateliffe and the Night Sweats are no slouches. They came out swinging with “Suffer Me,” their three-piece horn section giving that added punch of color. Whether rollicking on the piano at the back of the stage on, fronting on guitar, or bounding across the stage with a tambourine, Rateliffe was in command and had the crowd on their feet and singing along for the entirety of the set. Their core sound was stretched to cover a lot of ground with the New Orleans blues of “Slow Pace of Time,” the atmospheric folk of “And It’s Still Alright,” the country jaunt of “Hey Mama,” and the bring-the-house-down gospel of “S.O.B.”
The night came to a head with a show-closing cover of Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” that had both bands merging for a very fun onslaught of sound that pulled out the best from both units. The last show of the amphitheater’s season was an early autumn treat that had everyone in Syracuse feeling alright.
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