My Morning Jacket Celebrate 20 Years of ‘Z,’ Debut Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” and Resurrect Black Sabbath Cover at Red Rocks

My Morning Jacket, photo by Silvia Grav

Over the weekend, My Morning Jacket finally arrived in Morrison, Colo., for their long-awaited two-night return to the hallowed Red Rocks Amphitheatre. On Aug. 15 and 16, the revered roots-rock ensemble brought two concerts so packed with surprises that they instantly earned recognition among the band’s finest of 2025; building off the momentum of their new late summer is tour and imminent 20-year anniversary of their fourth studio album Z, My Morning Jacket’s sets on the storied outdoor stage were at once an electrifying return to their origins and a statement of their continued vitality.

My Morning Jacket set off their Red Rocks run on Friday night with the first of five highly anticipated Z anniversary performances, plotted at key dates across the country through Nov. 1. To properly honor the project hailed as a masterpiece of modern roots rock and one of the defining rock albums of the 2000s, the group commenced a first set that wound through the entirety of its 10-song tracklist, from the soulful, resonant opening chords of “Wordless Chorus” through the fiery finale of “Dondante.”

My Morning Jacket’s second set on night one was just as exciting as the first as the band packed a review of their career highlights since into an exhilarating 10-track sprint, beginning with the Z B-side “How Could I Know” and a treatment of frontman Jim James’ solo original “Here in Spirit” featuring special guest Veronica Stewart-Frommer, vocalist for the evening’s opening act Melt. After cuts from their recent 10th studio album is like “Half a Lifetime,” “Everyday Magic” and “Squid Ink,” the quintet added to their already sprawling live repertoire with a debut cover of Steely Dan’s “Do It Again.” A set-closing rendition of the new favorite “Dancefloors” sent the crowd grooving off into the night, with high expectations for night two.

As a surprise to attendees expecting a standard show to balance Friday’s experimentation, My Morning Jacket returned on Saturday night with another striking new format. Bit by bit, the band progressed through their whole discography from beginning to end, stringing a few cuts from each era together into a total reflection of their artistic development.

This journey began with “The Dark” and “It’s About Twilight Now” from 1999’s The Tennessee Fire, followed by selections from At Dawn (2001), It Still Moves (2003), Z (2005), Evil Urges (2008), Circuital (2011), The Waterfall (2015), The Waterfall II (2020), My Morning Jacket (2021) and is (2025). A highlight within the sprint was “Holdin On to Black Metal,” which welcomed another sit-in from Stewart-Frommer. For a grand finale, My Morning Jacket offered up an encore of essentials “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)” and “One Big Holiday,” split by their first cover of Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath” since 2010, presumably in memory of the late Ozzy Osbourne.

My Morning Jacket will return to the stage tomorrow, Aug. 19, for another Z anniversary show at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Palladium. Find tickets and more information at mymorningjacket.com/tour 

Learn more about is and the journey of creative redefinition that led to the band’s triumphant 2025 release in My Morning Jacket’s recent Relix feature here.