mikechuck

10,000 for a basketball game. Roughly 20% of the arena's seats were behind the curtain. Obviously a number of floor "seats" were removed as the space for GA was huge. Conversely, people were jammed in to the GA section and was much more dense than you'd find at a game. If I had to bet on how many people were there last night I would go with 7,000.

Wow, sounds like a larger-than-usual venue for Wilco, even for a hometown show.

I saw them three times this summer and don't think that any of those theaters seated more than 2500.

What is the crowd capacity of the UIC Pavilion?

Albuquerque, NM - 5/9/08

El Paso, TX - 6/17/09

Tucson, AZ - 6/18/09

Los Angeles, CA - 6/23/09

The El Paso show was my favorite because it was here in my hometown and the band seemed to be having the most fun of all the shows I've seen.

Funny thing is, Jeff namechecked El Paso at both of the following shows I went to.

There was no El Paso poster commissioned for this show, sad to say...I checked with their merch guy as soon as I got there.

 

Also, the setlist as posted in the original post is slightly off; "Spiders" and "Misunderstood" are switched around, and "Walken" was also included in the encore. The band played from approximately 9:20pm to 11:30pm, much like they did for Tucson the following night. Here's the corrected list:

 

1. Wilco (The Song)

2. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

3. You Are My Face

4. One Wing......

 

This was my 17th Wilco show and will go down as a personal favorite of mine. The El Paso audience may have been relatively small, but they more than made up for it with sheer enthusiasm -- and I too was shocked at how well everyone knew the words to so many songs. Great fun.

Thanks for correcting the setlist. I knew something was off with it when I posted it. I just pasted it from the El Paso Times and was out the door for Tucson and didn't take the time to correct it.

Glad you liked the El Paso crowd. Jeff seemed to as well. The thing is, no one really ever comes here. We're so starved for good shows that when we get one, we simply give off tremendous energy to the performers. Bands don't make a lot of money here, but they love our audiences.

My third show on the tour, and a great one - even if the crowd was full of d-bag hollywood types.

My request got played! (Forget the Flowers)

This was my 2nd show in Tucson, and based on my first (Beck at the Rialto about 2 or 3 years ago) I expected a much livelier crowd. I never saw any staff or ushers telling people to stop dancing, though. It just seemed like kind of a communal decision, I don't think that the concert being in a seated venue had anything to do with it. The El Paso show was in a formal concert hall and we were all on our feet dancing from first note to last. However, there was bar service and we were allowed to take our beverages into the theater.

Despite the crowd, the band was in top form. Where El Paso had a kind of loose vibe to it, Tucson's show was more like watching Steely Dan. Totally locked-in and precise - what incredible musicians. And the show was LOUD compared to El Paso. The band just sounded huge!

Good stuff all-in-all. I can't wait to see them at the Wiltern on Tuesday - it'll be my first Wilco show in a general admission environment and I don't know what to expect.

Great show last night. Maybe will post some some personal observations when I get to Tucson later today. For now, here's the review from the El Paso Times:

Concert review: Wilco puts hungry EP crowd under its spell

EL PASO — "Why didn't we come here before," a smiling Jeff Tweedy asked the Chavez Theatre crowd toward the end of Wilco's rousing performance Wednesday night. "You're awesome. We don't say that to everybody."

He wasn't kidding. Tweedy's a quietly intense kind of performer, not one given to smiling a lot or goofing around. But as the relationship between the reserved, gravely serious-looking singer, his resourceful five-piece band and a virgin El Paso audience grew, almost song by song over a mesmerizing two hours, the looser, more friendly and more playful the band, particularly its Brillo-haired singer, became.

That's twice in a week that a rock band with considerable acclaim and hipster cache — but no big hits or radio exposure —has come to town and seriously bonded with a hungry local crowd, augmented Thursday, no doubt, by a few discerning out-of-towners who knew they could score an inexpensive ticket in a place where acts like Wilco don't come close to selling out (they filled 1,100 of the theater's more than 2,000 seats Wednesday).

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who cut their newest album in nearby Tornillo, managed to make that same, if more intense kind of connection with a much bigger audience of 1,700 starved fans last June 10 at Club 101.

There are a couple of good reasons why Wilco got such a rapturous reaction from the willing crowd, and why the smiles on the band members' faces got bigger as the show progressed. It wasn't about whetting a hungry audience's appetite with their mere presence, it was about Tweedy's artfully honest, smartly crafted songs about love, heartbreak and his own shortcomings, and about the focused, resourceful musicianship of a band with a dynamic range that was roughly the equivalent of a driver who can go from 0 to 60 mph and back in seconds — and make it look easy.

Despite Tweedy's late-show chattiness — he also vamped during "Hummingbird," singled out a boy in the front row during the driving, episodic "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and fretted the neck while the kid, who looked 8 or 9, picked out a solo. Just before the gentle rolling intro of "Jesus Don't Cry," Tweedy pointed to an amorous couple he'd singled out earlier and jokingly admonished them to "keep it clean, kids, there's a youngster right here — no more grinding."

It's those little moments of spontaneity that help elevate a concert from the routine to the remembered. So, too, does the high-level of the performance itself.

They opened with Tweedy's slightly mocking, slightly celebratory "Wilco (The Song)," from "Wilco (The Album)," due June 30, the closest thing to humor in the set's more straightforward, focused first half.

There were other highlights, for sure, particularly a smoldering "A Shot in the Arm," the ominous homocide tale "Bull Black Nova," a requested "Should've Been in Love" and barely restrained versions of "Handshake Drugs" and "Shake It Off" that complemented Tweedy's intensifying, throaty intonations with Nels Cline's caged animal guitar histrionics, a sweat-soaked Glenn Kotche's metronomic drum work and unobtrusive contributions from longtime bassist John Stirratt, Pat Sansone (on keys and guitar) and keyboardist Mike Jorgensen.

It was after Tweedy started opening up to the crowd that the performance moved to the next level — or two. "Impossible Germany" is the song that best encapsulates what this particularly resourceful lineup can do, starting out as a gently Allmansesque ballad that, thanks to the stratospheric guitar duels of Clines and Tweedy, propels the song into jam band hyper drive before they pull it back down to earth. It's easily one of their best songs.

The set took on a more playful quality as it neared its conclusion, with "Hummingbird" eliciting one of the more vocal crowd singalongs (and Tweedy's face suggested he didn't expect the crowd to know the lyrics to so many of their songs), while "Heavy Metal Drummer," the first of a three-song encore, invoking Kiss in a wistfully nostalgic way. The heartbroken sweetness of "Hate It Here" and the finale of "I'm the Man Who Loves You" were an emotive one-two punch that ended the night on a high note.

Credit goes to Jim Ward and his band Sleepercar for getting the evening started on the right foot. The former At the Drive-in and Sparta member's a local fixture whose rootsy rock band has made numerous hometown appearances over the past year.

None that I'd seen previously matched this one, which was by far the tightest, most assured I've heard them (fill-in drummer Joel Quintana of El Paso's The Royalty had something to do with that) and the best his songs from Sleepercar's "West Texas" and his own solo CDs have sounded to me.

The importance of a high-caliber concert act like Wilco finally coming here was not lost on Ward, who has been promoting the show through his new My Town blog for the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"This is a good night for our town," Ward said.

Indeed it was. In fact, it was pretty awesome. And I don't say that very often.

Wilco setlist

1. Wilco (The Song)

2. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

3. You Are My Face

4. One Wing

5. Pot Kettle Black

6. A Shot in the Arm

7. Bull Black Nova

8. Side with the Seeds

9. Should've Been in Love (request)

10. Handshake Drugs

11. Shake it Off

12. At Least That's What You Said

13. Jesus, Etc.

14. Impossible Germany

15. Via Chicago

16. You Never Know

17. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

18. Misunderstood

19. Hummingbird

(encore)

20. Heavy Metal Drummer

21. Hate it Here

22. I'm the Man Who Loves You

I'll be at El Paso (I live here), Tucson, then the 23rd in Los Angeles. Can't wait!

Listened for 2 weeks straight after the leak then put it away. Not for any dislike, I just didn't want to burn out on it (although that hasn't been a problem with the thousands of times I've listened to the other records).

However, I was planning on putting it back on heavy rotation today - seeing as the band's gonna be here (El Paso, TX) a week from tomorrow!

When Wilco plays shows with a horn section, is it exclusively with the Total Pros or will they sometimes farm out the horn gig locally?

I think that the addition of horns on stage really compliments the band's sound and brings a higher level of energy to the show. I would love to see them live with a horn section and am wondering what my chances are of getting to see that this summer (I'm seeing them in El Paso, Tucson, and Los Angeles).

Does anyone have any info about the circumstances under which they use horns? It would be greatly appreciated!

I'd like to somehow take credit for this... so I will! You're welcome!!

 

Thanks!

For the El Paso show I was gonna suggest Sleepercar (a nice little alt-country offshoot of At The Drive-In and Sparta), and as I'm logging on to suggest this, my buddy called me and told me that they, in fact, ARE opening for them here. Nice!

I'm just bitter because the dodgers beat the giants last night.

 

There are parts of LA that are awesome. But mostly the scene there makes me nauseous. That being said they are hitting berzerkeley and saratoga (winery show?!).

 

I just caught John Prine at the Warfield and would love to see Wilco play that venue.

There's some truth to this. The second night at the Wiltern is going to be my third show on the tour (after El Paso and Tucson) and I know it'll have the worst crowd by far.

Concertgoers in LA are so jaded and self-conscious that they can't really let loose and have a good time. They're much more concerned with who ELSE is at the show than what is happening in the show.

just my 2 cents. GO DODGERS!

I was right on top of the on-sale time for El Paso and got row J, centerish. My buddy got on a few minutes after me and wound up with row C. What's up with that?

I got back on a minute before the Wiltern on-sale time and it was already sold out. I guess no road trip to LA for me.

A funny thing. Last week, I totally missed out on the Tucson presale, so I logged on when the public on-sale hit and got 8th row center. Maybe some of us who are not all that happy with today's gets might do better to try again when the general sale starts.

Got my Tucson tix this morning. 8th row, dead center - not bad for missing the presale.

Great time to be playing a border town.

Why do you say that?

Looks like I was right about El Paso. The listing went up on ticketmaster yesterday.

My best friend knows the venue manager.

I hear El Paso, TX on June 17th. Sounds like a swing through the southwest to me!

Good Lord, the encores alone must've been amazing!

Leaving for Albuquerque in just a few hours, too. Glad to hear the band is in top form.

I'm headed up from El Paso tomorrow afternoon and I can't freaking wait! They don't make it around these parts much so, needless to say, this is my first Wilco show.

One thing I can't understand is why this show hasn't sold out yet. The theater only seats about 2,000. I've got 3 extra tickets to get rid of and until this show sells out I really don't have a prayer of getting my money back.