augustus westerberg

Wow, $120 + $39 shipping for DP 1&2 on vinyl, I'd love to have 'em but that seems a little steep. Plus, if I bought 1&2 it would be hard not to keep going, wonder how quickly they'll be releasing the rest? The WB years box was worth it just for Aoxomoxoa alone, but can't see where these will justify the price sonically, only in an obsessive collector way. Will have to think hard about it but probably gonna cherry-pick my favourite DPs only - Fillmore 70, Harpur College, Boston 74, Englishtown 77....

3rd & final night at Lee's, my head feels like it's been crushed in a vise and my liver is begging for mercy, nevertheless please come back soon guys!

Besnard Lakes from Montreal opened all 3 nights and were most enjoyable, J joined them for their last song tonight & upped their game as much as you'd expect, adding psychedelic leads over their MBV-ish thang. They were obviously thrilled to have him and didn't try to hide it. Nice.

No Bones

Get Me

Yeah We Know

Start Choppin

Rude!!

They Always Come

Don't Pretend

Watch The Corners

What Was That

Pierce The Morning Sky

Raisans!!!

Feel The Pain

Freak Scene

Gargoyle

The Lung (vocals by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene)

Chunks (vocals by Murph & Damian of Fucked Up, unknown on drums)

Lou introduced Rude as a live debut & guaranteed they'd fuck it up, of course they immediately false started it but then nailed it on 2nd try, one of the highlights for me, a great live tune, real punk rock. There was a sort of tuning jam for a minute or two between Pierce & Raisans that sounded a lot like See It On Your Side off the new album, perhaps they'll break that one out soon. K Drew tried to get J to duet on Lung vocals but J wasn't having it, nice try though Kevin! Lou has to be the most entertaining bassist ever, he just attacks the thing. Really impressed with his playing on the 90's tunes too, in particular he just KILLED Start Choppin. Tired as I am, I miss them already, it's been a great week.

Dinosuar night 2 was amazing, same 4 off the new album but outside of that only 2 repeats. Setlist:

Chunks

Wagon

Lung

Post

Training Ground (Deep Wound song)

Don't Pretend

Corners

What Was That

Morning Rain

Mountain Man

Pond

Start Choppin!!! (live debut for classic lineup)

Just Like Heaven

Freak Scene

Forget The Swan

Feel The Pain

Out There

I'm still on the fence about getting tix for them, let me know how you like it.

I would highly recommend getting a ticket, but then I think J has been the world's greatest living guitarist since August 1995, and as such I would always go. Show tonight was great, front loaded with new stuff then wall to wall classics in the 2nd half. I don't much like the 1st album but have to say that Gargoyle was probably the highlight of the night for the epic guitar solo, just incredible. Wow that man can shred. Mucho grateful for Sludgefeast, Kracked, Tarpit & In a Jar too, and though I'm hoping to hear Lou sing Rude off the new album in the next couple of nights, I was really happy to get Back To Your Heart tonight. Hope J follows suit & pulls out Plans or Almost Ready or Not Alone on night 2, let's feel the love for the reunion albums. Setlist:

Thumb

Don't Pretend You Didn't Know

Watch The Corners

Pierce The Morning Rain

What Was That

Back To Your Heart

Budge

Little Fury Things

Feel The Pain

Freak Scene

Kracked

Sludge Feast

Bulbs Of Passion

Gargoyle

Tarpit

In A Jar

C'mon, the riff in Great White Buffalo is awesome! He is otherwise rather appaling though.

That's really promising, wonder if a new album will follow? And (dare to dream) tour?

Dinosaur jr tonight at Lee's Palace, first of a 3-night run. Teeth will likely have rattled right out of my head by Thursday. First impression of the new album is not great, but hoping to get a wide range of songs over the 3 shows. Hope they don't ignore Farm & Beyond, love those albums.

Califone opening for Wilco in February 2010, now they're my favourite band. Thanks Wilco!

After 3 shows I'm loving it more every night, sorry it's all over now for me until Buffalo. Think I'm gonna try and make Ottawa too although it's showing as completely sold out right now, and keep an eye on Auburn Hills and Cleveland if I can get the time off work. And Roger did utter the magic words at the end of the 3rd Toronto show, "we'll be back", so another North American leg would seem likely at some point. Don't miss it. He came back and ended the DSOTM tour here, would love if he did so again.

For all the pyro, flying pig, crashing plane, and giant puppets, the projections are the real visual stunner in this show. Using the wall as a giant screen stretching into the stands on each side is just incredible, some really cool stuff both familiar and new. Spectacular show, worth every penny.

30 years after buying the album and 26 years after first seeing Roger in concert on the Pros & Cons tour, finally saw the Wall show tonight. This is a stadium sized show being performed in arenas, doesn't really matter where you sit, I was in the first row of the upper bowl (at $75 Canadian + charges, $89.75 total) and would sit there every night no question (I'm in the same row same section tomorrow and in the back corner of the lower bowl Saturday). The crashing plane took off from almost right above me, but the pig only did its float about on the other side. The wall itself is as high as the top row of the lower bowl and is used as a screen for projections throughout, in this respect you could be ANYWHERE in the arena and not miss a thing except close up view of the musicians in the first set, while the wall is only partially built. In the second set they're mostly hidden behind the wall anyway.

*SPOILER ALERT*

There were no surprises song-wise, no Wish You Were Here, Brain Damage> Eclipse encore, no When The Tigers Broke Free slipped in somewhere, just the Wall in its entirety. Gilmour never appeared despite the considerable buzz, the smart money's gotta be on London for that or if it's in North America you'd have to think NY or LA. Happily they included What Shall We Do Now? (a highlight for me) and the 'Last Few Bricks' instrumental that I'll always think of as the Empty Spaces jam 'cos that's what it was called on the first boot I ever got of the Wall live, and at the beginning the little burst of Outside The Wall that you hear on the album was an extended intro version, more like an intrumental verse of the actual song. A couple of songs had slightly extended versions, most notably Mother had a longer instrumental section and ending.

From where I was sitting it was impossible to get any visual evidence but going purely by my ears I would like to take a closer look at both rounds of In The Flesh, Run Like Hell, Waiting For The Worms, the Trial and sadly, Vera, to judge the 'live-ness' of Roger's vocals. Maybe I'm just cynical but they sounded too clinical to me. Must remember binoculars tonight. The band was very professional, too much so for me in that they're not even a 'band' really, this is 50/50 rock show/broadway show and the tightness/borderline stiffness reflects that. I love that boot of the 75 Hamilton Floyd show with You Gotta Be Crazy and Raving And Drooling where they do long, jammy verions of those songs, and even on Wall tour boots there's a rawness to the sound of the band even with the extra musicians, you can hear the band within that, even on the KAOS tour at the Hamilton show there was a moment when Roger had technical difficulties with his guitar chord and, testing the replacement, started Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and after the crowd goaded him into singing it the whole band and backup singers picked up on it and it turned into a really cool thing. There's no room for anything like that in this show and that's about the only drawback I can think of, the Broadway-ness of it. But it's THE WALL, and easy as it is to take it or Dark Side for granted after hearing them a million times, they really are pretty much note and word perfect pieces of work and it's a real treat to hear them done live. Though more than anything I'd rather hear Roger do some new stuff!

The tickets ain't cheap but the lesser priced ones are at least do-able, if you're a Floyd or Waters fan you really can't miss this show, the Wall shows are legendary for a reason, you'll probably never see a better marriage of rockshow and theatre. Can't hardly wait to do it again tonight.

Restaurant review from the current NOW magazine (Toronto news/entertainment free weekly):

http://www.nowtoronto.com/food/story.cfm?content=175445

Mostly positive review, their food critic can be just a tad pretentious though he mostly keeps that in check here, great publicity for the owner as the mag has a huge circulation.

Looks like another great show, thanks a lot for posting the Finland setlists mrk.

Didn't a later update say that Wilco would play "in some capacity" on Sunday? Makes sense to me that they would close the festival, let's hope so.

Got tix for opening 3 night stand in Toronto and the Buffalo show. Toronto prices were ridiculous, a friend called me all excited because he got 8th row floors through some Amex VIP presale and earmarked one for me, at $500 I had to decline - yeah there's nice stuff that comes with it (exclusive poster, t-shirt, program, laminated ticket, as yet undetermined souvenir) but short of Jerry, Jimi or Buddy Holly coming back from the dead I ain't paying $500 to see ANYONE. Well, maybe that Led Zep 02 Arena thing would have been worth it. Maybe.

The rogerwaters.com presale was horrible, at $250 a pop you HAD to but a pair, not 1, not 3, just a pair, and you couldn't find out where your seats were until weeks later. Fuck that. So I got "cheap" seats for the first 2 nights in Toronto through the regular TM onsale, $100 each for upper level but I got 1st row up there both nights so not too shabby, as good as it gets as far as cheap seats go. Went mid price for 3rd Toronto, $150 for lower level seating towards the back. Buffalo prime seats were $50 less so I pushed the boat out and got a 2nd row lower level 2 sections from the stage, always have a great time with the good people of Buffalo so I figured it was worth splurging for that one.

In the end I'm doing 4 shows for more or less what my buddy is paying for 1 in the VIP scam, yeah it would be nice to be that close but if ever a show was vast enough that it didn't matter so much, The Wall is it. Really unhappy with the disgusting ticket prices this tour but I've seen Roger about a dozen times since the Pros & Cons tour and he's one of the few that can move me to tears in a concert, I'm looking forward to the shows and feeling pretty good about the decisions I made on tickets. Still might end up in Cleveland, Auburn Hills and Ottawa too.

Let's hope GE Smith isn't too much of a distraction, good musician but his mugging was serioulsly annoying when he used to play with Dylan.

Just got home a while ago from 17th of 19 straight nights at work trying to stay on top of paying for all this, when and why did having fun and enjoying music get so freaking expensive?

Wishful Thinking was on Without A Trace once.

Saw the 4 New England shows this tour and have gone beyond amazement at how the band just keeps better, now I've come to expect it, but that bar is set pretty damn high!

Thanks for small venues at 1995 prices, for allowing taping, for webcasts and streams, for living room sets, for golden banter, for mixing it up every night, basically for being the fan-friendliest band around.

2950 km through 2 provinces & 6 states, 4 nights of Wilco 12 hours of music something like 65 different songs, a beautiful spring week in New England with my girl, honouring the late great Alex Chilton every night: PRICELESS.

Thanks Wilco, see ya in August!

not official yet but these are the dates that have leaked.....

Sep 15, 2010 Air Canada Centre Air Canada Centre Toronto, ON

Sep 20, 2010 United Center United Center Chicago, IL

Sep 21, 2010 United Center United Center Chicago, IL

Sep 26, 2010 Consol Energy Center Consol Energy Center Pittsburgh, PA

Sep 28, 2010 Quicken Loans Arena Quicken Loans Arena Cleveland, OH

Sep 30, 2010 Boston TD Garden Boston TD Garden Boston, MA

Oct 05, 2010 Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden New York City, NY

Oct 08, 2010 HSBC Arena HSBC Arena Buffalo, NY

Oct 10, 2010 Verizon Center Verizon Center Washington D.C.

Oct 12, 2010 Nassau Coliseum Nassau Coliseum Long Island, NY

Oct 15, 2010 XL Center XL Center Hartford, CT

Oct 17, 2010 Scotiabank Place Scotiabank Place Ottawa, ON

Oct 19, 2010 Bell Centre Bell Centre Montreal, PQ

Oct 22, 2010 Schottenstein Center Schottenstein Center Columbus, OH

Oct 24, 2010 The Palace of Auburn Hills The Palace of Auburn Hills Detroit, MI

Oct 26, 2010 Qwest Center Qwest Center Omaha, NE

Oct 27, 2010 Xcel Energy Center Xcel Energy Center St Paul, MN

Oct 29, 2010 Scottrade Center Scottrade Center St Louis, MO

Oct 30, 2010 Sprint Center Sprint Center Kansas City, MO

Nov 03, 2010 Izod Center Izod Center East Rutherford, NJ

Nov 08, 2010 Wachovia Center Wachovia Center Philadelphia, PA

Nov 09, 2010 Wachovia Center Wachovia Center Philadelphia, PA

Nov 13, 2010 Bank Atlantic Center Bank Atlantic Center Fort Lauderdale, FL

Nov 16, 2010 St Pete Times Forum St Pete Times Forum Tampa, FL

Nov 18, 2010 Philips Arena Philips Arena Atlanta, GA

Nov 20, 2010 Toyota Center Toyota Center Houston, TX

Nov 21, 2010 American Airlines Center American Airlines Center Dallas, TX

Nov 23, 2010 Pepsi Center Pepsi Center Denver, CO

Nov 26, 2010 MGM Grand Garden Arena MGM Grand Garden Arena Las Vegas, NV

Nov 27, 2010 US Airways Center US Airways Center Phoenix, AZ

Nov 29, 2010 The Forum The Forum Los Angeles, CA

Dec 06, 2010 HP Pavilion HP Pavilion San Jose, CA

Dec 10, 2010 GM Place GM Place Vancouver, BC

Dec 11, 2010 Tacoma Dome Tacoma Dome Tacoma, WA

Few open dates for a 3-night stand to start the tour in Toronto, better start doing some overtime to pay for this....

Only variation from the printed setlist was the first encore, Hoodoo Voodoo replaced Late Greats. Guitar duel on Hoodoo was even more amazing than usual, Nels & Pat did Chuck Berry duckwalks at each other while jeff backed off looking afraid like "I don't wanna get in the middle of this", it was awesome. Hilarious banter about the usher staff, an elderly lady was really into her job hassling people smoking pot and/or taking pictures in the first few rows, Jeff dubbed her Mrs Doubtfire which was bang-on how she looked and remarked how he'd never had to tell the venue staff to settle down before, the usher on the other side had some super-fine looking wavy long hair and Jeff called him Barry Gibb while the whole band cracked up, it was freakin priceless. After I'm Always In Love Jeff gave happy birthday props to Nate the drum tech and led the crowd in a happy birthday singalong, a girl in the crowd passed up a happy birthday hat mounted on a pink hairband that Jeff then wore for Magazine (Nate's birthday request) then it was passed around to each band member over the next 5 songs. Nels wore it like a tie under his chin and Pat wore it on his arm like a "birthday pirate". Jeff said it was their first time playing Hartford and the crowd was really good and they should come back "more often than....never". For the guys smoking pot up front there was a pointed "roll another number for the SHOW", cracking the band up again, and Jeff got right up to them during Jesus and when they were too stoned to sing along properly made a toking gesture with his fingers to lips and rolled his eyes, the guy is funnier than most comedians I've seen.

Just an incredible show, I mean THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE!!!!! Been out since last Sunday in Providence and seen 61 unique songs out of 147 in 4 shows (not counting Easter Bunny or Happy Birthday), can't think of a better way to spend a week. HUGE thanks to the crew member who met us hanging around the box office ticketless this afternoon and hooked us up with front row centre and even thanked us for travelling so far to see the band, I say THANK YOU WILCO for an incredible week and 4 dynamite shows, can't wait to do it again, what a band, what a tour. So sad to be going home in the morning.

For the detail oriented Jeff had on a Chicago Police t-shirt that said terrorism on it, maybe a special unit? And white American Eagle tennis shoes kinda like those canvas Converse high tops, with colourful trim around the ankle. The rainbow SG never appeared neither did the dobro-looking thing. Just trying to fill in while bbop takes a night off

We tried to try a Concord eatery, the Draft was overflowing so we walked on and found the Green Martini - service was really slow so we had one beer and split for the show, the food that was brought out to other customers looked really good though. Just hope they made it to the show on time!

Amused To Death is my favourite! Loved the 99/00 tours when he was playing a few from that album, Pros & Cons tour still the gold standard for me though. It is too bad about his vocals not being up to the more strenuous stuff, as far back as the 99 tour he was lip-synching the "from where I stand..." part in Every Stranger's Eyes, and on the DSOTM tour using pre-recorded "guide vocals" on Have A Cigar and others that were pretty much all you heard in the house while he mumbled along to make it look good on the video screens. Not sure who he thought he was fooling, if anyone. Given that a huge percentage of the vocals on The Wall are by him, should expect even more of that. Hope I don't sound too down on him, I love Roger and will go see him anywhere, anytime. Just jonesing for some new stuff is all, it's been 18 years since Amused To Death!

I will go and am sure it will be great, but damn I wish he'd just release some new material instead of touring another old Floyd album.

Shipping costs from the Wilco store for orders outside the U.S. are outrageous. Seeing the sale on older LP's (buy 3 get 20% off) I went to order some and they wanted $35 for shipping ($12 per album? come on...), ended up getting them from amazon.ca instead and with free shipping saved a bundle even though the albums were on average $5 more there.

Pre-ordered KT vinyl from amazon too, $70 Canadian plus their standard free shipping on orders over $39.

UPDATE: Got 2 for Providence, still looking for Concord & Hartford.

I guess they released a few Orpheum singles that day, I'd been checking every day for at least a week to no avail and suddenly there were orchestra seats available. Keep trying, tickets always seem to trickle out closer to the actual date.

Have sent you a private message...

Got the incredibly sad news at work in the middle of the night and listened to Keep An Eye On The Sky on the ipod for the rest of the shift, so many great songs and the spooky ones off the 3rd album were downright bone-chilling last night. Thanks for all the great music Alex, rest in peace.