fragrantviolator

Wow. That's amazing. The piano, the guitar and the falsetto are clearly straight from the Band's version, which is awesome.

Here is my review of the show:

 

There are two things that I thought I would never see at a Wilco concert: a VIP section and people leaving midway through their set. When the line outside Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake stretched around the venue with people holding lawn chairs and pulling coolers, I was skeptical on the logistics of the seating arrangements. Surely, they would have a standing area up front like so many other open concert settings. As I entered the gate, all I could notice was the vast sea of blankets and lawn chairs stretched across the lawn, right up to the front of the stage. I wandered around, taking in the venue, which is beautiful, but was also skeptical on the crowd that was attending.

 

The Red Butte Garden is located at the University of Utah and its members are individuals and/or families who donate large sums of cash to the garden and/or university. A reward is tickets to these corporate sponsored shows. During Fleet Foxes entire act, which was amazing, the crowd sat on their blankets and drank fine wine and showing no emotion at all. The crowd had the same enthusiasm as someone sitting at home watching Law and Order. The crowd was so spread out that no one could really connect with the music on an intimate level since most were spent talking about the stock market or their hedge funds to pay attention to probably one of the best indie bands in the country.

 

Following the 30 minute Fleet Foxes set and a quick set change, Wilco came on and immediately made partial amends. Opening with the Woody Guthrie tune,

Red Butte is a great venue. As a Utard, I can confirm your information regarding recent renovations. It wasn't bad before (the setting was the same) but the sight lines were bad. I would say only 50% of the crowd could see the entire stage under the old setup.

Regarding the crowd being subdued at first - that's typical at red butte, since the shows usually start before sunset. Ryan Adams played there last year and he seemed pissed that people were sitting down. He played about 10 songs and left just as the sun went down. As Wilco showed, you just need to play mellow songs until the sun goes down, then crank it up.

It was a great show. My only complaint was that they did not play my request - Kicking Television.

Didn't they do Any Major Dude for a movie soundtrack? I would love to see that live. Also, I think Wilco could do a great job covering the Band or some of the Dylan/Band material. Jeff and John could both do well with any of the Rick Danko vocals. Ferdinand the Imposter anyone?

I love this song. I've always thought it was a pretty straightforward story - Guy drunk out on the town, runs into his ex, for whom he still has a lot of feelings, but also some resentment, hooks up with her, and decides either before or during the encounter that he's just doing it to get back at her, to break her heart.

The individual lines are probably more open to interpretation and attachment of personal experience, i.e., "I assassin down the avenue" seems to me to be that feeling of "man, I'm pretty cool" that comes after a few drinks, with the use of assassin as a verb maybe showing the narrator's drunken state.

The last verse seems to me to be the narrator's anger at himself, reflecting a few days later, at having taken the vindictive root when he had the chance to get back together with the girl. He characterizes the girl as the "disposable dixie cup" but is more anger at himself for being the disposable dixie cup drinker.

Please come to salt lake city. I know grand junction is close (5 hours or so), but it's on a weeknight and I have a job and kids. Please book Salt Lake City on the next tour. It's been too long.

I think nels is fantastic. He shreds his 'featured' solos but his additions are much broader. I was watching the youtube of forget the flowers recently and was really impressed at how he knocks out a country music lead like that. I think that some who don't like his solos think that's all he adds. One of my favorite things about him is the counter points he adds to jeff's solos and some of the subtle flourishes he adds all over the place. The guy appears to have no ego - he is certainly the best technical guitarist in the band, but he does not need to be the center of attention on every song.

As far as calling SBS forgettable, I think that is way off. It is a collection of great songs. My only gripe is that it does not contain much change of pace. It's all "Jesus, etc." and no "I am trying to break your heart" or "i'm a wheel". But I love the way the new material fits into the live shows where it can be balanced by some faster songs and some weirder songs. I have been listening to recordings of the residency shows lately and they just blow me away with the variety of songs present. In my opinion, this version of wilco is the best rock and roll band in america in the last 20 years.

What I would love to hear for the next album is a few songs with O'Rourke and Nels working together. That could produce some fantastically weird results.