NoOneKnowsMe

I was at Friday’s show and last night’s and definitely thought I got my “money’s worth” and then some on Sunday. I would disagree that the second set felt tacked on because the auxiliary musicians continued to play with them. Even “Outtasite,” which was really powerful with the horns and strings. It worked really well.

Hearing “Cars Can’t Escape” was incredible, as was “The Good Part” (though it took me a second to recognize it). And last night may have been the best version of “A Magazine Called Sunset” I have ever heard.

As for YHF, I think I preferred Friday’s performance. I felt (and I’m not sure if I’m the only one) like Sunday’s performance veered a bit closer to how the band normally plays the songs. Yes all the details were there, but they are tinkering a bit. Not for the worse, necessarily, but I’ll cherish hearing all the songs the way they played them on Friday, which was incredibly close to the album versions.

That said, last night’s version of “Reservations” was one for the ages. They spectacularly pulled off the end and the audience gave them the attentiveness the song demands, not cheering until it ended. Jeff seemed grateful for it all.

Also, this run’s MVP is Pat. His ability to play so many instruments is being put to good use, often in the same song.

Hi folks. Longtime member, but it's been a little while since I posted.

Here was the setlist (and please correct anything you see amiss. I compared my memory to a pic of the setlist):

1. A Shot in the Arm
2. Random Name Generator
3. Via Chicago
(Band left the stage due to rain. Came back 10-15 minutes later with equipment pushed farther back.)

4. Art of Almost
5. If I Ever Was a Child
6. Impossible Germany
7. Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
8. One Wing
9. Hummingbird
10. Everyone Hides
11. Box Full of Letters
12. Born Alone
13. Jesus, Etc.
14. Theologians
15. I'm the Man Who Loves You
16. Heavy Metal Drummer

17. I'm Always in Love

Encore:
18. Outtasite (Outta Mind)

This was my 20th Wilco show and first this year, driving with a friend from Cleveland to upstate New York to catch it. The band was energetic and seemed to be happy to be playing, which apparently seems to be a theme on this tour. Not only due to the COVID-induced break from the road but also because of weather. From what I've read, the band has taken bad weather with them to a lot of their Midwest and East Coast stops. Last night's concert started on time, but a venue staffer told the crowd after NNAMDÏ's set that officials were concerned about lightning.

But hey, everyone played! Sleater-Kinney started nearly an hour late and played a shorter set. Wilco got through three songs in the rain (not heavy but it was blowing toward the stage) before Jeff told us that "they're pulling the plug" and that the band would hopefully be back. Luckily they returned after 15 minutes or so and blasted through "Art of Almost."

I'm sure others will post observations about how shows are the same/different than others on the tour. For me, while I always want some more variety in the setlists, I thought the band sounded great and were energetic. Perhaps more than the past few shows I've seen. As I said, I think just being able to play was big, given the uncertainty with weather. Jeff was moving around more and visually interacting with the band a lot, and was even nice enough to give Nels a shoulder massage as the guitar maven closed out "Hummingbird."

I heard a security guard say the venue had a 10:45 p.m. curfew. Wilco was originally supposed to play from 8:30 to 10. "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" ended at 10:44. Good timing.

From a pic of the setlist I saw online the band had "One and a Half Stars" and "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" in the main set, and encores were listed as a choice between "Ashes of American Flags"/ "California Stars" or "The Late Greats"/"Outtasite (Outta Mind)".

I've been a fan of Sleater-Kinney for nearly as long as Wilco. I like the songs they played from the new album. But ... I miss Janet Weiss. The live band had six members and honestly I could have done without a couple of them. But Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein continue to be forces of nature.

I'm a big fan of NNAMDÏ's music on record. I think he has a way to go as a live performer. The music is there, though, and he has a crack band.

“Reservations” and “Laminated Cat” were highlights for me, for very different reasons. The former’s arrangement was maybe the best I’d ever heard (this was show 18 for me) and the latter got noisier than I remember it getting in recent years. Jeff seemed to relish playing electric guitar after doing so many solo shows.

Both shows were great, but I think night 2 has the edge. That may be because I finally got “Red-Eyed>Century,” which has eluded me for years.

I haven’t posted here in a long, long time, even though my love of Wilco has endured. Last night was show 17 for me, and tonight will be 18.

This write up is pretty much spot on. However, I wanted to point out that (I’m pretty sure the band tweaked its arrangement of “I’m the Man Who Loves You.” Pat’s on acoustic guitar now and it’s not nearly as piano heavy. IMO the change is for the better.

As the Bijou Theatre lights dimmed and Wilco prepared to take the stage for the first time in more than 18 months, the heavy stage curtain remained tantalizingly drawn. When it finally opened, what would it reveal? To what extent would the performance that was about to take place be familiar and to what extent would it be different? And on a day when tickets went on (pre)sale for the first American tour in many moons, how much would this long-awaited performance say about where the band is headed in the short — and long — term?

 

These types of questions, I suppose, are what has drawn fans from seemingly across the continent to this charming Tennessee college town mid-week. What materialized on stage was a group of musicians that no doubt had some rust to shake off but seemed, more or less, to pick up almost exactly where they left off since the last time they had all been on stage together in St. Paul, Minn., in November of 2017. Jeff and Co. just seemed happy to be making music together again, if also trying to rediscover some of the muscle memory that goes with playing some of their sizable back catalog of songs.

 

After One Wing — which perhaps revealed some of that rust when Pat came in early on one of the harmony vocal parts, out of step with Jeff and John — Jeff rhetorically asked the charged-up crowd, “Remember that one?” Jeff continued, “We do, sort of. We’re gonna be remembering all night.” Fittingly, though, the band first seemed to hit its stride on the very next song — the lone A.M. cut played tonight — Shouldn’t Be Ashamed.

 

That was kind of the way it went, at least to these ears. Some songs, like the mid-set duo of Impossible Germany and Born Alone, sounded as brilliant and polished as ever. The former drew almost certainly the biggest ovation of the night after a beautifully visceral Nels solo that sounded refreshed (since he hasn’t had to play it every night ad infinitum). And I was thinking that even in a rehearsal-type of show that the Shepard tone portion at the end of Born Alone isn’t one that can really be half-assed; rather, the guitars really accentuated Glenn’s drumming to create an intense burst there.

 

Meanwhile, other songs definitely revealed some of the proverbial cobwebs like when Jeff had lyric flubs — some more noticeable than others — on songs like Either Way and Forget The Flowers. And a few saw the band not totally in sync musically, such as on Dawned On Me which Jeff stopped and restarted because, as he said, “I think we’re a little off from each other.”

 

While the setlist didn’t feature anything drastically unexpected, there were a couple of relative surprises. One was a full-band version of Remember The Mountain Bed with Nels on lap steel. It’s a song that Jeff has played solo quite frequently during the band’s hiatus, so it was a bit jarring (in a good way) to hear it fleshed out again, not to mention its appearance toward the end of the main set. “We’ve never played that song that late in the set before,” Jeff remarked afterward. “We just wanted to see if we could do it.” And then it was a bit unexpected to hear the jaunty arrangement of Outta Mind (Outta Sight) to kick off the encore before settling into more familiar territory with the run of Jesus, etc.>Heavy Metal Drummer>I’m The Man Who Loves You that wound up closing the show.

 

From a banter standpoint, Jeff mostly joked about the band’s hiatus and return. When Nels donned a white double-neck guitar before Dawned On Me, Jeff quipped, “We had to go get that out of a pawn shop. We still had the ticket, luckily.” Earlier in the set, he had commented that “our long national nightmare is over,” and deadpanned that “it sure is nice to see you again and it sure is nice to put these clothes back on and (assume) this persona again.” At different points, Jeff also jokingly asked the audience what it had been doing over the hiatus as well as whether it had been seeing other bands. Of course this produced any number of people yelling things, to which Jeff replied, “Those other bands all suck, except Nick Lowe because I heard someone yell him.”

 

Certainly there was a level of informality at this first comeback show that you would expect from what, in some ways, could be viewed as a public rehearsal. That also manifested itself in some of Jeff’s banter, such as when he called out our own theashtraysays after (I believe) Company In My Back. “You have a loud clap...Vince,” Jeff said to the gentleman who had snuck up toward the front of the stage. “That’s right, I know all of your names.” Later in the set, before The Late Greats, Jeff also mused aloud to his bandmates that he thought they probably should just continue after playing it. He admitted to the crowd that he had initially planned for the set to end there. “So now we’re in bonus territory,” Jeff said. “It’s been way too long, years, since I wrote a set. I forgot how long songs are.”

 

As much as these Knoxville shows are serving a warm-up of sorts for the band, they are also almost certainly practice for its crew. So I would be remiss not to mention them, particularly the excellent sound and the set design, which featured a modified version of the forest-like setting from the Schmilco tour with red lights interspersed among the “fauxliage.” Also notable among the (new) stage props I could see was Glenn’s drum head, which featured the well-known image of Adam West as Batman holding a lit black bomb over his head — whether this has anything to do with the forthcoming Wilco record was not addressed by Jeff — as well as a psychedelic camel sculpture of some sort displayed behind Mikael’s rig.

 

Anyway, I’m sure that the band will use its second show at the Bijou to work on more songs and shake off some more cobwebs before heading over to Europe for its first bonafide post-hiatus tour next week. Whether that will include any new material remains to be seen, though it seems unlikely (particularly in this age of social media). Even though audience members were asked prior to the show to leave their phones in their pockets and security initially made some attempts to enforce that, it was mostly a losing battle. Maybe that doesn’t really affect the decision to play something new or not, but I’m sure it doesn’t help.

 

So for now, we’re left with just the good ol’ Wilco back catalog and a group of guys seemingly happy to be reunited at long last. And for the vast majority of the 700 or so folks fortunate enough to make it inside the intimate Bijou each night this week, that is probably more than good enough.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 of Wilco's long-awaited return:

 

Hell Is Chrome

Whole Love

War On War

If I Ever Was A Child

Cry All Day

One Wing

Shouldn't Be Ashamed

Either Way

Company In My Back

You And I

Impossible Germany

Born Alone

I'm Always In Love

Forget The Flowers

Someone To Lose

Remember The Mountain Bed

The Late Greats

Locator

Dawned On Me

Random Name Generator

Hate It Here

-----------------------------

Outta Mind (Outta Sight)

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Do you know if they plan to release Roadcases for the entire Tweedy tour? I was at the Milwaukee show and loved it, but I wasn't sure if they cherrypicked a couple shows and didn't plan to release the rest ...

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Magnificent Defeat. I loved that record when it came out a couple of years ago, and I thought it was some of his best work in years.

Just my opinion though. I'll be spinning that one today.

I just got back from a music festival, where I really haven't heard much news or anything. I come home to this.

Weird thing is, I just recently found out he lives in Urbana, where I am currently living. I had never seen him around or anything.

RIP Jay, and my condolences to his loved ones.

I don't know if this is the right thread to do this in, but I have noticed a few little glitches in a few of the DVD download tracks (not the DC show, but the one from the movie). A pop here, a skip there. Did anyone else hear those, or am I going a bit crazy?

I made an impulse decision to go. At 10 a.m., I saw they were playing there, and got tickets (I am currently living in Urbana, so I was willing to make the drive). It was one of my better impulses.

The show was far from the best I've seen them. It started off a bit on the slow side, but they eased in and got more energetic as the night went on. "Bob Dylan's 49th Beard" was awesome, and "Hoodoo Voodoo."

Still, I have to ask, why are they touring right now? Money? Love of playing? They played no new material, with an album coming out in the next few months. It was a good show, but not their most inspired (they seem to like adding noise to more songs again). If it's for love of playing, they need to make a better argument than what they made in Bloomington.

I still had a great time, as it was a very enjoyable show anyway. The 70 miles worth of country roads (driving home was kind of awesome and creepy) were worth it.

I actually saw him at the Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center the night before to review the show. I loved it, and it seems like it was similar to the show at The Vic the next night.

Here is my review to the show: http://blogs.dailyillini.com/entertainment...te-enjoyability.

It will summarize what I thought about it far better than anything I type here.

Great show. Better than last time he was at Foellinger, but I'm not sure how I feel about one of the new songs. Not "Wilco the Song", but the other one...

Try this on for size:

The support page seems to be down.

 

Sounds like belt slippage me - is it belt driven?

Yeah, it is belt driven, what does that mean for it?

So I just bought a Crosley Keepsake turntable. It seems to be working fine, and I love the sound I'm getting out of it.

However, when it spins, it kind of goes up and down. Everything seems to sound fine, but should it be doing that? I am just worried about wavering pitch, since it is able to transfer stuff to mp3. It is on a shock-kind of thing, so it is kind of suspended. Is the up and down thing on the platter natural, or should I exchange it?

That's a shame that Spoon wasn't too good.

I have seen them twice, and they don't really do it for me live. I love their studio records, but there is nothing special about them live.

So I saw The Roots tonight at Millikin University in Decatur, IL, because I got a free ticket. I had seen them before, and they did not let me down. Leonard "Hub" Hubbard, their bassist who left last August, was missed, and the bass just wasn't as good. Still, it was a good show, and the songs from their new album, Rising Down, sounded very very good live. They still jam out a lot, doing a lot of covers of other artists' hip-hop songs.

Krukid, a Champaign rapper, opened and he was very entertaining as well. It was all well worth the free ticket.

The Newport, KY show was really short too. I thought it may have been because it was Easter Sunday, but I guess not. I still really enjoyed it. Setlist looks similar, except they played Out of Reaches (awesome) and Baby Come On :^P

Lucky. I love Baby C'mon.

It was short, but I think they aren't playing very long shows on this tour, for some reason. I still enjoyed it though, and maybe it's because I had never seen him before. I was expecting "Pencil Rot" and "Baby C'mon", but alas, no dice.

Edit: The cover was Mungo Jerry's "Alright, Alright, Alright."

Alright, I went to the show tonight, and have to say, Malkmus and his newer Jicks are pretty damn sweet. Janet Weiss was rocking hard on the drums and the band just seemed really together. Highlights for me were "It Kills" and "Gardenia" (from the new record). Malkmus is an interesting, but really good guitarist. I was third row, and it was really cool to watch him play.

John Vanderslice opened, and he won me over slowly but surely. He did his last song on the floor with acoustic instruments, and it was great for me because I was right there listening to him, but I imagine anyone farther away would not be able to hear what was going on, save for the drum.

Rage and Wilco to play at Lolla, too?

The other reason I arrived early to this year's South by Southwest festival was the opportunity to interview the

I remember getting filmed in 2005 outside of the Vic Theatre for the DVD. My group and I took notice of the camera crew, so we started to look in the distance, as if we were profoundly thinking about something (you know, the way all Wilco fans look...). After that one of the crew members came up to us, and asked us to sign releases (we had to be 18, but I was the only one that was at the time). Then we got paid $1 for our services.

Too bad THAT footage never came out.

Thanks for all the help. Any more is always appreciated, but this is great!

Rumor has it Foo Fighters are headlining this year...don't know if that is a good or bad thing...

Discuss.