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My Morning Jacket singer injured in concert fall

By Loren Keller

My Morning Jacket singer and guitarist Jim James took a nasty spill off the stage at the University of Iowa Recreation Building Tuesday night, cutting short the band's concert seven songs into its set and forcing the band to cancel its next four performances.

In a statement posted on its web site this afternoon, the band says James suffered "traumatic" injuries to his torso and is expected to take two to three weeks to recover.

"As some of you may have heard we had to cancel our show last evening in Iowa City. We were finishing up the last few bars of 'Off The Record' and just like any other night we were all having a great time. Jim went to get closer to the audience on his side of the stage, and as he moved forward to step onto the sub-woofer the lights darkened, and he inadvertently stepped off the stage. Upon falling, he suffered traumatic injuries to his torso, and was immediately taken to the hospital.

"Per the doctor's orders, Jim will be off the road and recovering from his injuries for the next two to three weeks. Sadly, we must postpone the two shows in Chicago on Thursday and Friday until further notice.

"For those who attended the Iowa City show, we would like to extend our gratitude for your understanding and cooperation. We take our fans and performances very seriously, and would never cancel a show unless it was absolutely necessary. Please know that we will be making every effort to return to your fine city.

"Thank you so much to our fans for the kind sentiments and well-wishes on Jim's behalf. We hope for Jim's quick recovery and to be back out on the road soon."

The statement is signed, "With Love, My Morning Jacket."

Drummer Patrick Hallahan told the band's hometown newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, that James suffered "severe body trauma” and said James will be immobile for at least two to three weeks. The band was already scheduled for a three-week break beginning Saturday.

“This tour has been inundated with positivity and this was an abrupt ending, but if it was going to happen this was the best time possible,” Hallahan told the newspaper. “We would never postpone shows unless it was serious."

My Morning Jacket manager Mike Martinovich told the newspaper that James slipped on stage and essentially “did a really intense splits.”

“He’s in a world of pain,” Martinovich said. “Our tour manager and our guitar techs will put bright orange gaffer tape around the edges of stages because not every stage is uniform and Jim’s mindful of that,” Martinovich said. “So while Jim was rocking out, losing his mind, getting lost in the music, the lights went down. He thought he was going to be stepping either on or in between two monitor wedges … and I presume he hit the side of one monitor and did a really intense splits.”

Hallahan added, “I don’t think (Jim) even knows exactly what happened because it happened so quickly. I didn’t even see it because the lights were out.”

James, whose real name is James Olliges Jr., was treated last night at the nearby University Hospital and released this morning. He will have follow-up tests in Louisville, according to the Courier-Journal.

Hallahan addressed the crowd last night about ten minutes after James apparently misjudged the stagefront at the end of playing "Off the Record" and collapsed onto a row of speakers set up in front of the stage.

"Jim is really hurt and he's heading to the hospital right now," Hallahan told the crowd.

A YouTube clip of Hallahan's announcement is posted here.

"It was pitch black. He couldn't even see the edge of the stage," said a fan in the front row who was standing about six feet from where James fell. The fan said James apparently stepped off the stage into about a foot of space between the edge of the stage and floor speakers set up in front, which were a few inches below stage level. Security, stage hands, and band members rushed to his aid, pulled James up onto stage and escorted him off.

UI junior Asaf Vakmin said James was holding up his guitar vertically at the song's end before he saw what looked like James tossing his partially glow-in-the-dark instrument into the crowd.

"I thought, 'sweet, somone has a guitar,'" Vakmin said. "Then he wasn't standing up anymore. It made a big crashing noise."

James took the unintentional stagedive 33 minutes into the band's set. During the song that preceded his slip, James was energetically bounding about the stage, guitar in hand, at one point spinning around in a tight circles for several turns. Bright, multicolored lights, including a strobe light, flashed from behind the band and flooded the stage for most of the song before the space went dark and James tumbled.

Fortunately for James, he didn't have far to go as the university hospital is located less than a block away from the Recreation Building.

Unfortunately for the 500 or so fans attending the concert, the band was just hitting its stride when James went down. The band had played a total of seven songs, mostly from its most recent record Evil Urges, including "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 1," for which James donned a black cape and prowled the stage sans guitar.

The band's tour manager appeared onstage a couple minutes after James fell, telling the crowd James' injury was being "sussed out" backstage and that the band expected to continue playing. Less than ten minutes later, James' bandmates returned to announce that James was heading to the hospital.

Drummer Hallahan delivered the bad news and apologized, saying the concert's cancellation was beyond their control.

"We'll do our best to make it up to you guys, we promise," he said.

The concert was booked by the University of Iowa's SCOPE Productions.

“The safety and concern of him was the number one priority obviously, and we supported their decision to cancel the show because he needed to get to the hospital,” says Ryan Snider, SCOPE's general manager.

There's no word yet on whether tickets will be refunded or honored at a later date.

"As far as tickets, that’s all being worked out," Snider says. "I don’t know when that answer will come. We’re still figuring everything out; it’s going to take at least a couple days.”

For fans wondering what might have been Tuesday night, Iowa City's Mission Freak web site says it obtained the band's set list for the concert and has posted it here.

The band has canceled tonight's benefit concert for the Barack Obama campaign at Schubas in Chicago and shows that were scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the Chicago Theatre, as well as a second Obama benefit concert scheduled for Louisville. The band's Iowa City stop was its 27th on a lengthy American tour that began Aug. 15; a European leg of the tour is scheduled to kick off Oct. 29 in Dublin.