Yaz Rock

43 minutes ago, Goalinlifewastobeanecho said:

Besides the 7" and the nightly poster, how's the merch looking for these shows? Definitely going to be heading to the Foxtrot pop up to snag some goodies.

A couple pennants/banners, assortment of tshirts, YHF lapel pin, YHF oval bumpersticker, IATTBYH patch, and a keychain i think.

I truly enjoyed myself last night. Had I gone to Night 1, I too would have been perplexed by the short show, but I certainly would not have renounced my fandom.  Jeff was very gracious to acknowledge the rumblings and he thanked the crowd for allowing Wilco the opportunity to make amends with a longer set. Very nice.

I enjoyed hearing the "album version" of the songs. I've read comments from people who felt this approach was "limiting" ; if one wants to hear the extended jam versions of YHF songs, there is a good chance to hear any 4 or 5 YHF songs any given regular show. This was a special chance to hear the songs as recorded, and I am glad for this opportunity.  if anything it may have been extra work for the band to try to recreate that sound, as opposed to playing "loose."

I wonder how deep the band will go with deep cuts. Venus Stopped the Train? Won't Ever Let You Down?  Nothing Up My Sleeve? I'm guessing Cars Can't Escape is about as deep it will get, and that's OK.

I am not entirely sure if the band put the kibbosh on taping or if that was a venue policy. The venue seems to run a very tight ship in certain regards. I was told, firmly, to not take photos with my point and shoot camera, yet many people were taking videos with their phones all night. Go figure. Here are some of my iphone pics.

I am looking forward to two more nights of this!
 

Merch booth. Just sold out of last nights poster. Long but not too slow moving line. Seems to be a good supply of everything.

7 minutes ago, TCP said:

All this debate about setlist lengths and I'm just sitting here wondering about the new 7". Did you buy it and have a chance to listen @bböp? If so are these previously leaked takes? Any mention on the sleeve of the forth coming deluxe edition of YHF?

 
Yes, any pics of the merch booth? What else is there besides show posters and the single vinyl? Cool YHF shirts/hats/pins/ anything?

Yes, they are a significant leap up in price. At least for the good seats. Upper levels was 60-something dollars which came out to 82 with fees. I justified it by the fact it the venue is the Palace Theater and I love those old ornate venues, and I've never been to the Palace. And that they are special YHF shows. I did balk at seeing Jeff solo in Brooklyn this past summer because of those prices.

Similarly at least one other big name artist I follow raised their prices considerably since the last time around. This seems to be the new normal, unfortunately.

I am shocked at how easy it was to get tickets to the NY shows. Last time I got Wilco tix through TM, the tickets disappeared from the seating chart before I could even put them in my cart. Even 45-60 minutes after on-sale, plenty of seats, and some good seats, were still available. Perhaps not everybody is ready yet for big indoor shows. Maybe 4 shows was too much for NY. Perhaps the one-day-prior announcement wasn't enough time for out-of-towners to make travel plans (didn't tours used to be announced a week or more before ticket sales??).
Anyhow, I aimed for two shows, and ended up getting tix for a third, just because. April-May is going to be a busy month of shows for me, most every band I like is going on the road at once.

On 1/25/2022 at 6:31 PM, Broken Foot said:

  Any thoughts on what they might do on Friday night?  

 

One thing they haven't done yet is play a set of all new music. Yes, there've been a couple years where they played a couple new songs, but it would be phenomenal to hear an album's worth of new songs for the first time. Star Wars would have been the perfect opportunity and the perfect album for that. Ode To Joy would not have been a good one to play in full at SS; hopefully they've got something more like Whole Love/SW planned for the next release and maybe debut at SS.

A fun thing they could do, is select a fan to curate a setlist. Maybe a contest where you submit your setlist and a random one is chosen for the winner. Stealing this idea from Pearl Jam who, in 2012, went into their fan club archive and found the longest active member and let him pick the setlist for one show. That may not be as exciting as the covers show, or hearing BT/YHF back to back, but I'm not sure what else they could do. I would not want Wilco to do a full cover album, like Phish does/did at Halloween, as I'm certain they'd pick something that would not be up my alley.

I don't know any of the bands on this lineup. With the announcement that Jeff was going to join Golden Smog for a couple shows this spring, I got my hopes up that we'd see a "Solid Smog" set. So, I was disappointed to see that they are not on the roster. That they've not yet been there once is a big head-scratcher to me.

Still it is great to return to a favorite place and see a favorite band and reconnect with friends. The other bands are a bonus. Each year I've left SS being a new fan of at least one of the support bands. 2019 was pretty good, with Ohmme and Mdou Moctar being the standout bands for me.

Drive-By Truckers have completed a new album. Release date not known. Unusually, they did not preview any new songs during their recent tour.

Soul Asylum have been working on a new record.

 

I forgot to mention that Jay Gonzalez of the Drive-By Truckers released a solo album Back To The Hive, and it is very nice. (I Wanna) Hold You is the catchy lead "single." I also like the instrumental track Loons on the Lake.

I also picked up the Foo Fighters's Medicine at Midnight. It's more my flavor than their last few albums, but I haven't kept it in heavy rotation. Chasing Birds is my favorite song off the album.

Mdou Moctar (of Solid Sound 2019) released a new album Afrique Victime, and it was included on a few critics' lists of top albums of the year. I haven't gotten into it so much, mainly because his last record is so phenomenal amazing that I haven't pushed it aside to make room for his newer material.

I'm probably forgetting other albums, especially if they came out early in the year. Anything and everything from before July feels like 2020 Extended. This year has really only been six months.

My biggest discovery of the year was the band Bloodkin, whom I read about following the death of founding member Daniel Hutchens in May. I checked out their catalog on bandcamp and ended up buying the whole collection. I listened to their albums all through the summer. "Last Night Out"  and "Baby They Told Us We Would Rise Again" are the two standout albums.

The download can be purchased at bandcamp for 10 dollars. Get the wav file to burn to CD and the MP3 for the ipod. I agree, it would be nice if there was  standalone CD release, even if it was just a simple cardboard sleeve, for those of us who like to have official physical releases.

So few of my favorite bands released new music this year, which was expected since most all of them put out albums in 2020.
The new releases that I did pick up:
Buffalo Nichols - Blues musician I learned of when he opened for Drive-By Truckers. I really like his sound.
John Mayer - Sob Rock. First album by him that I've bought. I like the sound but it is too mellow to stay in heavy rotation in my car.
Los Lobos - Native Sons. A collections of covers of southern California songs. Really good release.
Richard Thompson - Serpents Tears and Bloody Noses. Two EP's collected onto one CD. As with many of his albums, there are songs I really like, there are some that are alright, and there are songs that I could do without.

I also have the Mark Lanegan "Dark Mark vs Skeleton Joe" album but I have yet to listen to it, besides a quick sampling.

EDIT - Oh yeah, Ben Kweller released Circuit Boredom on January 1 of this year - his first album since 2012. A good release but it doesn't feel like a legitimate "2021 album". At least 3 of the 8 songs were released in 2020, and the only physical release was vinyl.

As far as re-releases and live albums, the one I listened to on repeat the most was Taylor' Swift's Red re-recording. Both discs are great; I actually like the 2nd disc better than the proper album. I also enjoyed the Drive-By Truckers Live at Plan 9 records album. And if we're counting all live releases, there are of course the four shows that Pearl Jam released. So great to have live tapes by them again even if they were shows I didn't attend.

It was a good half-year for shows. Many of my favorite artists toured. 2022 is already shaping up to be a busy tour year as well. See you all at Joe's Field in a few months!

Thanks, good to know it is still available! I am tempted, it will be a nice companion to my Pearl Jam Philly Spectrum boxset, but it is hard to justify 60 dollars for a set of shows for which I already have the official MP3s and those excellent-quality audience recordings. I am curious why Wilco are releasing this seven years down the road when it would have been an obvious buy for me right out of the gate. Maybe I'll grab a copy on sale or a used copy down the road some day.

Happy Birthday VC! My stats say I've been here fifteen years, I may have lurked for a couple years before that. I am glad this place is still around, even if I don't post much besides about the singular shows I attend. For setlists and show reviews and recording archives, this place is far better than the Social Media Site Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered and thus will remain an essential Wilco resource. Well actually it is better for anything and everything than the SMSWNSNBU, which,  I just found out this morning, has led to the demise of another (private, non-music) forum that once was the go-to forum for another one of my hobbies. So it is heartening to see that many people still check in here and keep this place vital.

Cheers to many more years of Via Chicago!

Trampled by Tyranny, LOL.  Wilco should add their hit song, Vaccinating Beauty, to these setlists.

20 hours ago, chriscolbert said:

Any shirt pics?  Just curious if there are any with both band names on it.

This one, at least:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSMzakJlX4S/

Regular reader here too! Contributing a few photos from the Sunday July 18 show.

Thanks Paul for your review! I'll add that, about 2/3-way through the show, before Evergreen, Jeff teased "I think this is the last song of the evening..... about my dead father." He then turned and looked back at Spencer and asked "Remember Grandpa?" eliciting a grimace from Spencer. An audience member asked what Jeff's father's name was, and Jeff said "Robert... "Robert Lee Tweedy." And then added that his dad voted for Obama twice and stopped going to the bars because they would not turn off Fox News. His dad called Jeff and Susie crying the night the Travel Ban was announced during the former administration, and said that he wanted to go to the airport to protest. His dad said "I would have carried you across the desert to take you to the United States  if I had been born somewhere else and I needed to get you somewhere to keep you safe."

I am not a veteran of many Tweedy Band shows but I thoroughly enjoyed the 3-piece band. It also helps that I enjoy the newer solo material more so than the first few Tweedy albums. Nels's guitar contributions were sublime.

I'm super happy to be looking forward to actual Solid Sound! I am curious why the switch to Memorial Day Weekend - was anything mentioned about that? I've grown quite fond of the end of June/official Beginning of Summer slot.

Will be interesting to see what the Friday night theme night will be, if anything? Maybe they finally debut a new album in entirety at the festival? They were so close with Star Wars... and that would have blown people's minds too.

Solid new albums recently out from Trapper Schoepp, Mdou Moctar, and Jay Gonzalez (of the Drive By Truckers). I also enjoyed the Foo Fighters' Medicine at Midnight much more than their past few albums.

6 minutes ago, lost highway said:

 

 

Also, if anyone has any other videos to share of this performance last night, I really missed out.

Yo can watch the whole show here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMLyJuRFdZi/

I really enjoyed the performance, besides the obvious elation of (half) the band being reunited. They trio of them should go on tour. Tri-co?

Did you dream about killing again me last night? Did it feel alright to you?

On 12/23/2020 at 7:05 AM, remphish1 said:

I got kweller album on vinyl it’s good but so short! Since I was in the first 100 orders I got a signed note in my vinyl which was a nice touch!

Nice! That is very cool. I am holding out for CD or digital release.

Yeah, oddly, the digital release was a few months ago but the physical release was this week. That seems to be the direction the music industry is moving in. I echo all the above sentiments. Additionally, even when Cooley's writing contributions are minimal, the songs he submits are out-of-the-park great. DBT are pretty much the only band I listen to that are putting out topical songs of the times right now.

Ben Kweller's first album since 2012 comes out on New Year's Day (technically it is out already but physical copy is due on NYD). I'm expecting a quiet year otherwise, most all my favorite bands released albums in 2020. Since all those bands couldn't tour behind their new albums, I wonder if they'll wait 'til touring resumes to release any follow-ups.

5 hours ago, TCP said:

 

Wow! What other outtakes that Jeff has never (or barely ever) played can we get you to request?? Venus Stop The Train?

I'm still waiting on Joe Dimaggio Done It Again!

More or less in favorite order!

1. Soul Asylum - Hurry Up and Wait

2. Drive-By Truckers - The Unraveling

3. Taylor Swift - Folklore

4. Alex Dezen - IV (So Far)

5. Pearl Jam - Gigaton

6. Phish - Sigma Oasis

7. Old 97s - Twelfth

8. Ohhme -  Fantasize Your Ghost

9. Kathleen Edwards - Total Freedom

10. Richard Thompson - Bloody Noses (EP)

11. Jeff Tweedy - Love Is The King

12. Letter To You - Bruce Springsteen

13. Drive-By Truckers - The New OK