bastard_of_young73

here's what i remember:

 

sunken treasure

mountain bed

airline

hesitating beauty

muzzle of bees

you are my face

handshake drugs

side with the seed

shot in the arm

she's a jar

jesus etc.

nothing'sever

at least that's what you said

via chicago

impossible germany

hummingbird

pot kettle black

ITMWLY

Walken

hate it here

on and on

red eyed and blue

i got you

hoodoo voodoo

 

jeff said they were happy to finally be playing a philly show with a roof over their heads, that the foo fighters suck, and not to forget to watch SNL next week

 

good to have them come to town after so long

That is the setlist pretty much dead on from what I remember. I haven't seen them live since '05 in Philly. I was really wowed by the musicianship and all the layers of stuff going on. You can kind of hear it on the record, but until you see it live with the 6 of them, it's actually kind of almost like seeing a great orchestra.

All that being said, I'd only rate it a 7-8 on a scale of 10 for a few reasons:

First - the setlist in general. Call me an old curmudgeon, but considering they just played the whole catalog last week, I thought we'd get a few more songs off A.M. or Being There. They still could have played the same kind of show and just tweaked things a little. I knew they were going to play at least 6 songs from the new album, which they did and they sounded great. And I thought they did a great job substituting "Nothingsever...." and "Pot Kettle Black" in place of "I'm Always in Love" and "War on War", which they seemed to have played so much the last 5+ years. And "Hesitating Beauty" was a nice choice from Mermaid Ave. That's one they don't play that often these days.

But I seriously think I've heard "I'm the Man Who Loves You" at every show I've seen with Tweedy solo or the band since 2000. And pretty much on every bootleg I have obtained since then too. Ditto for "Red Eyed and Blue > I Got You"....except I could say the same for that since 1997 and "Shot in the Arm" and "She's a Jar" since 1999. And "Sunken Treasure" also seems to get played at ever show I was at. And I don't think it's a good choice for an opener. It seems to me to be a good song to open an encore with to slow things down after you end the regular set with a rocker. I love the song, but.....

I love all of those songs, but given what everyone knows they just did in Chicago, I thought it would have been nice if they had thrown a "Box Full of Letters" (which they haven't played in Philly since 1997), "I Must Be High", "Monday" or "ELT" or something along those lines into the set at those points. Those songs in the set I've just heard them do so often. Maybe I've just been out of the loop on what they've been playing lately and these songs are just making it back into the sets after disappearing for awhile. And I'm also not a big fan of "Hoodoo Voodoo" and really don't see the point of playing "On and On and On", especially as a set closer. Oh well. I guess I'd like to see them throw a bone to the fans who were with them before 1999 and still enjoy those older songs.

I was on the fence about going to this show, because it seems most of the tickets went to ticket agents and not fans, as it sold out in less than a minute after going on sale. I wish they would have asked for a show of hands at the venue to see who actually was able to pay list price to see this show. My guess is 25% or less of all attendees. But I bucked up and paid $90 each (for $30 tickets) for my wife and I to go, partly because I thought I'd hear some old songs and rarities that they haven't played in awhile, given the fact that they were rehearsing and playing everything in the catalog the week before.

My other complaint was that Jeff did say early on that they had a "long program" prepared for everyone since they hadn't played Philly in a while. Meanwhile, they ended up playing just the standard 2-hr set that they always play here. Jeff's solo gig here was about that long...and that's with him singing every word and playing every note himself. When he came out for the encore at about 1:45 into the set, he said something like, "Well, we have to get out of here in a few minutes, so we're going to have to cut this short" or words to that effect. Well, if you know the curfew for the venue is 11pm and want to play for 2:15 or 2:30, then go on earlier. Move up the start time to 7:30 rather than 8 or something.

I guess those are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. It was still a very good show. But it would have been a great show in my eyes if those things were tweaked a little bit. I think I've seen the band 8 times now in the last 11 years. And while almost every show has been good to very good, I think I've only seen them once where I felt it was a great show - where they sounded great, played a really long time, played most of what I wanted to hear, and surprised me with several song selections. It seems like every show I'm at I get a few those qualities, but not all of them. Oh well, like I said overall it was a good show.

Hey all,

I was able to download these files (thanks!) but when I try to unzip them I get "unrecoverable zip file read error" and then it says "it does not appear to be a valid archive."

I know others have downloaded them successfully and were able to unzip and play them, so I know it's me. Any idea what the problem might be?

Thanks,

John