theashtraysays

It was indeed a strange little sit / stand / rush dynamic. But good lord those seats WERE quite comfy. My newfound friends in the front row had all conspired to break the standing seal right away, but when they opened with Hell is Chrome it was clear that Jeff was reading the room and not cranking it up early. But when Jeff kinda coaxed the crowd leading into RNG, we went for it!! One of the more peculiar moments in that tug of war was when a lone woman came down the aisle to the front as Jeff started Hummingbird, which seemed to be a favorite song of hers. Jeff kinda acknowledged her pr

Deeper setlist, closer rail, laid-backer crowd. That’s pretty much the story there for night 2 imho. Give me a Sunken Treasure and a How to Fight Loneliness and it’s a good night for me. We could tell that the crowd wasn’t going to be as rabid as night one while we were out on the sidewalk, as the line at 15 minutes till doors was nowhere near what it was the night before. Not a bad crowd at all (unless you were the opener - see below), just not as much excitement flowing back to the stage I thought. But a funner show at least for me in terms of setlist selection. About that opener -

^ what he said. Indeed a fun, fun night of rock and roll. Loved the room! Compact stage with a rather shallow floor and small balcony set way back. Sound was pleasantly loud (the big row of subs in front of the stage did the job without being jarring at all) and quite good. Just the right setup for a cozy Wilco show. Hoppin crowd with just a touch of rowdy as mentioned above. Tonight’s lyric flub was perhaps a result of a little too much “palate cleansing”, as Jeff totally botched the OPENING LINE of Muzzle of Bees after his comment / Glenn - jab. So we’ll never really kno

Yeah sorry about that. Copy/paste while I was offline on a plane. There’s probly a way to fix it but I’m a Luddite.

…Which was the show that almost wasn’t, at least for me. After a rough night without much sleep and perhaps some bad midnight udon noodles, I almost didn’t go to the show cause I felt like crap all day. Waiting for the delayed bullet train on the 34F degree platform for almost two hours did not help. Apparently there was an incident involving a train and a person somewhere that delayed all the trains from Tokyo to Osaka (including, according to Cheryl’s post) the band. But come showtime I thought I was stable enough to make it so I went on in during the Finom set which made the wait m

Once again thanks to the bbop for getting this started… If you haven’t read my comments about night one in Japan yet, do that first. My thumbs can’t handle repeating all the stuff that was the same like the entry process which was the same but with higher numbers. On we go… Namba Hatch is located right next to Haneda airport, and was a lot like EX Roppongi, but bigger. Even wider room, even higher ceiling, and deeper. The standing floor was sloped upward a bit (I didn’t notice if there was a “ledge” anywhere back, and also had rails going across the floor left to right abo

Many thanks to bbop for starting the thread. As I don’t have a laptop with me this trip, it was nice to get that head start so my thumbs wouldn’t have quite so much to do. So here goes… I was fortunate to make the trek to Japan to catch Wilco playing here for the first time in about ten years, and the opening night got off to a rousing start. The EX theater in the Roppongi neighborhood is a very nice modern room, with a high ceiling and deep set small seated balcony overlooking a wide standing floor that was tiered at least one level about halfway back with a rail. Terrific

Wilco!!

Yo la Tengo

My wife's fashion review on the Facebook group seems to have sparked some commentary!! ("Chairman Mao with a beanie")

Sad news indeed. Will the holographic farewell tour make it to the States?

bout damn time.

Likewise!! After figuring out our VC connection, we were wondering who’d take the reins for this recap with bbop being out and about elsewhere. Nice to see some first rate reporting so quickly!! Not much to add banter-wise to the above reports; Jeff seemed to have something say between almost every song which was delightful. I could tell that nalafej and I were struggling to jot notes on all of it. I will say that the room itself was worth an extra mention. Imagine a cube maybe 30’ on each side, with pews for 50 people on that main floor. Set into the walls on eac

Strand of Oaks

Jeff Tweedy - betcha coulda guessed that one.

They played with YLT last night (Tuesday)

Switching it up a little. Andrew Bird

Yo la Tengo (One! More! Time!)

Yo la Tengo! Again!!

Yo la Tengo

Mike Cooley (DBT) solo

Love seeing that pic. Totally a Stan stan myself. (Did I mention we share a birthday? Tis true!) Interesting that of the zillion FB/IG posts, nobody mentioned this MONUMENTAL ACHIEVEMENT but you. #VCForever

Bob Dylan

Haven't seen much in the way of recaps for the book tour this time so I figured I'd chime in a bit about last night's event, since it was a rather limited run and many folks didn't get the chance to see one of the stops. Much paraphrasing here... I didn't take actual notes... but this is how I understood his comments. It's tough to recap something from memory which is basically ALL BANTER versus a regular Wilco show, but here goes. Jeff stopped by this very same High School auditorium five years ago for the memoir tour, and I remember that one being a little better attended than

Author Jeff Tweedy