TCP

Thanks for posting this. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world who doesn't love the Dead. I like a few of their records... American Beauty and Working Man's Dead are solid. But yeah, when I saw Wilco this September and they played US Blues everyone got excited and I was just thinking about the show a few nights earlier that got Kicking Television. 🤷‍♂️

But I'm sure there's some Wilco fans who don't like Neil Young and wouldn't get excited like I did when the band busts out Cinnamon Girl like they did in St Paul in 2019. Not even the Beatles are admired by everyone, and that's fine.

Fantastic recap for what sounded like a fun night, thanks Vince!! 

I really like John's Mustang bass, I don't know if I've seen him play that before.

I thought this video was worth sharing. I always liked hearing these "unplugged" Wilco sets, like the hootenany ones at the end of the Star Wars shows. The new songs sound really good in this format, maybe they should bring it back??

Great videography in this video and the sound is great too especially for no mic. That background is pretty ok too, I guess.

Yeah the concert is from July 2002, Jay would have been gone for about a year. I'm not sure if Mike was performing with the band, I know early on he was doing some stuff, like cuing up samples from backstage, but he's not credited in the linernotes at all. 

Bob Mehr's essay is really worth reading, it has some really interesting details about the recording of the album and the Jay's departure. Ultimately though, the music is the highlight here and this thing delivers. Between the album, the Loose Fur record, and Jay's leaked demos, I always figured we'd heard the majority of stuff from this era but that wasn't the case at all. The Summerteeth and Being There boxsets were really well done too but this one is on a whole different level, the amount of content on here is really staggering. The only thing I wish it had was a little bit more detail about what the American Aquarium, Here Comes Everybody, and Unified Theory records. I know individual performance listings probably aren't possible and we can infer a lot of details from what we know (like the version of Ashes and HMD were the ones Jay was trying to mix in the movie) but it'd be great to have some rough dates, know how much Glenn's involvement was, etc.

Most importantly: Can we start speculating about the A Ghost Is Born boxset set?? Coming fall 2024 hopefully! 😅

There's two things I'm really impressed with:

1) The amount of content we've never heard before. 

2) The sound quality of the stuff we have heard

Sounds great on vinyl but I'm looking forward to having the digital version on Friday and bouncing between different versions of songs and comparing the differences. 🤓

Contrary to what one might think due to my profile picture (Johnny Canuck being a historic hockey logo for the city of Vancouver, displayed here in modern Canuck colours of blue and green), I was not at this show.  However, since no one has posted the setlist and the setlist featuring a unique (for this tour) song I feel this is worth preserving from a historical perspective. Especially when the Wilco World website does not currently list the song between Impossible Germany and California Stars. I have heard from a trusted source at the show that Love Is Everywhere was listed on the setlist in its place but not played. 

1 Handshake Drugs
2 The Universe
3 I Am My Mother
4 Cruel Country
5 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
6 Hints
7 War On War
8 If I Ever Was A Child
9 Via Chicago
10 Many Worlds (coda only)
11 At Least That's What You Said
12 Story to Tell
13 Hummingbird
14 Tired of Taking It Out On You
15 Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull
16 Jesus, Etc.
17 Impossible Germany

18 It's Just That Simple
19 California Stars
20 A Lifetime to Find
21 I'm Always In Love
22 Spiders (Kidsmoke)
ENCORE:
23 Falling Apart (Right Now)
24 U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead cover]
25 I Got You (At the End of the Century)

Sounds like it was a pretty emotional evening, I would love to hear details!

On 9/20/2022 at 12:16 PM, nalafej said:

 

My friend is making a documentary on the J45 so this was quite hilarious to me. I scrambled to capture the banter for my friend who wasn't there - here's the video: 

 

Thanks for capturing and sharing!! I thought that whole exchange was great. I didn't know another long time VCer was there! 

Between bbop and theashtraysays expertly capturing the train incident, I think there's one more banter moment worth preserving in the written record from this show. It started when someone in the crowd asked Jeff about why he was playing a Gibson J-45. Jeff explain that this specific J-45 was a guitar he hadn't been using in recent years but brought it back for the YHF anniversary shows, since it is the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot guitar. He strummed a bit of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and he was right, it sounded just like that guitar. At this point Pat spoke up to help Jeff out. I think (???) this might be the first time I've heard a non-Jeff member of the band speak on microphone during a Wilco show. At least in person, I do have the roadcase from the Notorious Wilco Brothers show where a part of Glenn's drumkit almost hit Pat, to which Pat said his banjo saved his life. Anyways, and apologies if I don't get this 100% right (feel free to correct me), but Pat explained how great the J-45 is at projecting sound "it's like a little wooden cannon". I thought the exchange was pretty funny, but perhaps you had to be there.

On 5/18/2009 at 8:28 PM, TCP said:

Maybe I'm a jackass (okay, I probably am) but I was a little bit annoyed with all the kids, when I went to see Wilco. If you want to take your kids to a concert, go take them to They Might Be Giants, or something like that. There's a time and a place for kids but it isn't a rock concert.

But I just don't like kids in general, so maybe I am biased.

This post is pretty funny. Why did I say They Might Be Giants? 

Anyways, my issue at concerts these days isn't the children it's the loud mouth adults. Bring the kiddos, it's one less seat for a drunken boomer or an obnoxious 21 year old (...as I was when I made that post!).

Definitely anyone under the teenage years should wear earphones or ear plugs. The Cruel Country shows I've seen haven't been the loudest shows I've ever been to but Vince is right, the levels are being set pretty high.

Great recap for a great show, thanks Paul!

The iconic Canadian venue.... the Budweiser Stage. I believe this Budweiser Stage is the same venue they did a similar double bill with Lord Huron a few years ago. If Wilco ever circles back to Toronto in the next few years and plays the newly renovated Massey Hall, I'll definitely try to make the trip.

Thanks Vince! Great recap, Bbop would be proud. 

Setlist as per Wilco World:

1 Handshake Drugs
2 Cruel Country
3 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
4 Story to Tell
5 War On War
6 Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull
7 Hummingbird
8 All Across The World
9 At Least That's What You Said
10 California Stars
11 A Lifetime to Find
12 Impossible Germany
13 Jesus, Etc.
14 Heavy Metal Drummer
15 Box Full of Letters
16 Falling Apart (Right Now)
17 A Shot in the Arm
18 I Got You (At the End of the Century)

If you pre-ordered, check your e-mails for an early version of Kamera.

2 hours ago, Chez said:

Thanks, TCP.  Unfortunately, I'll be in Wyoming on RSD.

Looks like it's limited to 8000, so I'm sure you'll be able to track one down after. All of the Wilco RSD stuff recently has shown up on the Wilco webstore within a few weeks too so keep an eye out I'm sure one will pop up!

13 minutes ago, Chez said:

I've enjoyed reading the many thoughtful, well-written reviews in this thread.  I'm going to wait until I receive a physical copy of the album before I listen to it (horribly and stubbornly old-fashioned on this issue, I know).  Anyone have any inside information on when dB will release Cruel Country on CD and vinyl?     

There will be a CD release on Record Store Day Drops June 18th:

https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/15451

Looks to be no-frills in terms of cover art, etc. 

2 hours ago, unifiedtheory said:

I've seen John sing "It's Just That Simple" a handful of times -- always lovely to see him get that showcase -- but couldn't recall Jeff playing bass those other times. Is that the usual swap for that song?

The times I've seen it in recent years, including 2016 Seattle, Jeff played a 12 string acoustic and John played a 6 string acoustic, no one played bass. 

I wish I had some proof but I successfully predicted that Pitchfork would give Cruel Country a 7.2 before I even heard the album.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/wilco-cruel-country/

Good post from jff. It seems as though any time someone is critical of the band, there's a group of people who take it as a personal insult. I doubt even the band cares that much. I've noticed a change in the fanbase after The Tweedy Show too. There's a lot more fandom for Jeff and co as people, not just musicians.

Things definitely have changed. I remember VC after AGIB and SBS came out, at the end of the year, most people didn't include Wilco in their favourite records of the year. Just because this was a Wilco message board, didn't mean it's cool to like Wilco here!!

Hot take: I think this is another strong Wilco album in a string of 12 strong Wilco albums. 

Ok that's not really a hot take. But I do really like this record. Obviously Many Worlds and Bird Without A Tail are future classics. I think I Am My Mother is a really good opening track, as others have noted Jeff is singing like Bob Dylan but I also think the music itself is pretty reminiscent of Big Pink era Band. 

There's a lot of material here and virtually every song is at least a "like" from me. If I had any disappointments, it might be the similar tempo across the record. While I had been hoping for at least one Dreamer in My Dreams style acoustic-rocker I do think the album works without anything like that. But a few songs with the tempo of Hesitating Beauty would have added to the album. We sort of get there with A Lifetime to Find (which is another highlight, IMHO), but a few more sprinkled in or even just a bit faster than ALTF would have given the album a bit more variety while still staying true to the overall vibe of the record, IMHO.

I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of these songs live in the Dakotas this September. Hopefully a vinyl pressing can happen before the end of the year too because I really think these songs will thrive in that format.

I've always thought that if Wilco was to have a "hit" it would be unexpected and in this part of their career, like Touch of Grey. At this point thought I don't know what a hit song would look like for music like Wilco. 

1 hour ago, Lukestar said:

I opened this thread thinking it was going to be about how Many Worlds has them absolutely channeling the Dead.

Same!

Hello friends,

As some of you are aware, for the past two years I've hosted a Wilco podcast called Alpha Bravo Charlie. We analyze Wilco songs, in alphabetical order, twice a week. We've just finished recording the final song, and are about to record one last special episode to finish off the show. Earlier in the show I gave my co-host Jason an allegedly tough (according to Vince) Wilco themed pop quiz, and I'm planning on doing one more pop quiz for the final episode. I have 12 questions already but I thought it might be fun to get some questions from the community too! If you're interested, please submit to this thread. I'll credit you (either your handle or give me a real name if you'd prefer). Each question needs to have 4 potential answers. Obviously one needs to be true 😉

Here's a sampling of questions:

On the song Unlikely Japan, who plays the bass guitar?

A) Clint Elrond

b) Steve Patterson

C) John Stirratt

D) Chris Girard

Which country was Wilco the Album partly recorded in?

A) Australia

b) Canada

C) Sokovia

D) New Zealand

Where was Wilco’s final concert before the COVID-19 pandemic:

A) Sault Ste Marie, ON

b) Medicine Hat, AB

C) Winnipeg, MB

D) Regina, SK

The seatmap was a little clunky for the South Dakota show but it was easy to score good seats and didn't get gouged either. I suppose that's the benefit for going to shows in less than high profile locations.... no offence to any Sioux Fallsians here, I'm looking forward to visiting your fair city this September!