echo
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Posts posted by echo
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really diggin' the new one as well...but i'm not too objective as i love all their output!
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Wilco opened for Natalie Merchant also, and I am not going to go suck up to her garbage. That tour was painful especially watching her come on stage and dance during some songs.
Crow has one ok album, after that she blows. Her covers are boring and besides her one album her songs are passionless.
Green Day = terrible pop punk.
Keith Who?
This.
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an amazing show! crowd in my area (15th row/dead center) was silent except when encouraged to sing along with jesus, etc. i agree the show was a few songs shorter than i expected but what a blast. was thrilled when he announced a phx show and he certainly didn't disappoint.
btw, the gal didn't yell "you're a funky rock star" which jeff pretended to hear. the fact that he scolded her by "thanking" her for "dropping an f-bomb" in front of his kids let the crowd know he heard what she really said...
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EDIT: SADLY, VIC CHESTNUTT PASSED AWAY THIS EVENING...http://www.spinner.com/2009/12/25/vic-chesnutt-dead/
According to Kristen Hersh's twitter (@kristinhersh), Vic Chestnutt attempted suicide and is in a coma. Too sad. I pray for his full recovery.
Per her twitter:
In My Head: "Myrtle" by Vic Chesnutt: http://is.gd/5ziht - great song by a great songwriter...please send grateful thoughts his way
about 17 hours ago from web
no calls in the night-well, only to talk about how much we love vic-and no news is good news...if we lose him i'll have lost my equilibrium
about 6 hours ago from Echofon
yeah, i can tell you what i know, but no one knows much: another suicide attempt, looks bad, coma--if he survives, there may be brain damage
about 2 hours ago from web
this time, it's real scary: *this* time, he left a note, *this* time, he asked them to call me
about 2 hours ago from web
listening to Vic's The Salesman and Bernadette: my own personal Christmas music
40 minutes ago from Echofon
Additional discussion on her fan forum: http://short.to/11lxe
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He has tried several times...maybe he's just had enough. His is certainly a sad story. His music was his redemption...maybe it's just not enough anymore
i fear you're correct.
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EDIT: SADLY, VIC CHESTNUTT PASSED AWAY THIS EVENING...http://www.spinner.com/2009/12/25/vic-chesnutt-dead/
According to Kristen Hersh's twitter (@kristinhersh), Vic Chestnutt attempted suicide and is in a coma. Too sad. I pray for his full recovery.
Per her twitter:
In My Head: "Myrtle" by Vic Chesnutt: http://is.gd/5ziht - great song by a great songwriter...please send grateful thoughts his way
about 17 hours ago from web
no calls in the night-well, only to talk about how much we love vic-and no news is good news...if we lose him i'll have lost my equilibrium
about 6 hours ago from Echofon
yeah, i can tell you what i know, but no one knows much: another suicide attempt, looks bad, coma--if he survives, there may be brain damage
about 2 hours ago from web
this time, it's real scary: *this* time, he left a note, *this* time, he asked them to call me
about 2 hours ago from web
listening to Vic's The Salesman and Bernadette: my own personal Christmas music
40 minutes ago from Echofon
Additional discussion on her fan forum: http://short.to/11lxe
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Phoenix New Times just announced a solo show on Dec 27 for the Orpheum Theater in Phoenix! Very excited to see him solo again!!! Anybody else going to be there? Have other dates been released that I haven't seen yet?
This will sure make it a Merry Christmas!!
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As i mentioned several posts ago, nobody worshipped at the alter of Farrar more than I did. But year after year of subpar albums and performances changed things for me. Regardless, I entered and won tickets to the Mesa, AZ Son Volt show...front row, literally dead center, in front of Jay's mic. Candidly, despite my increasing age...I was super excited. I'll let Son Volt's drummer provide the review of the show courtesy of his blog:
"Mesa, ugh….
Well, last night’s show blew. It was not the return to rock, or country (or whatever the hell it is we play) as hoped. We couldn’t rise above the sterile vibe and godawful sound issues."
The show was a disaster. I'd reckon 40% of the crowd left well before the show ended. The girls behind us heckled the band for at least the first 5 songs to fix the God-awful sound....literally, all you could hear was Masterson. It was a joke. At one point, Jay's vox levels were increased but it was too little too late.
Jay was Jay. He was so stoned I got a contact high. The customary "thank you's" followed each song but nothing else to demonstrate he was any less bored than the remaining audience. I admit it really was the sound (which was quite good for the VH1-esque Cowboy Junkies' set) that ruined the night. However, the unfamiliar (i.e. ACD) songs that I could hear sounded quite good...
Which brings me to today. I was at the local record shop and feeling guilty that I saw a Son Volt show, front row, dead center, for free... and I caved. I bought the new album. While the Trace comparisons seem farfetched, this is a damn good album. P'forks 3.7 is asinine. The Son Volt camp has issues. The venues they're playing this tour are way too adult contemporary. Don't play the Mesa Center for the Arts in the middle of conservative, Mormonville. Play the Celebrity Theater or even a smaller venue that you'd pack. Turn the volume up and go.
To me, it appeared to be a band that's directionless and who's management is killing it by booking terrible, sterile venues with questionable opening acts. That said, the new record is definitely a step in the right direction...
Only time will tell...
e
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For those of you not familiar with Skip Spence or this record here is Spence's All Music Guide bio:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0ifoxqr5ld0e~T1
(Oar: 4.5 out 5 stars)
Like a rough, more obscure counterpart to Syd Barrett, Skip Spence was one of the late '60s' most colorful acid casualties. The original Jefferson Airplane drummer (although he was a guitarist who had never played drums before joining the group), Spence left after their first album to join Moby Grape. Like every member of that legendary band, he was a strong presence on their first album, playing guitar, singing, and writing "Omaha." The group ran into rough times in 1968, and Spence had the roughest, flipping out and (according to varying accounts) running amok in a record studio with a fire axe; he ended up being committed to New York's Bellevue Hospital. Upon his release, Spence cut an acid-charred classic, Oar, in 1969. Though released on a major label (Columbia), this was reportedly one of the lowest-selling items in its catalog and is hence one of the most valued psychedelic collector items. Much rawer and more homespun than the early Grape records, it features Spence on all (mostly acoustic) guitars, percussion, and vocals. With an overriding blues influence and doses of country, gospel, and acid freakout thrown in, this sounds something like Mississippi Fred McDowell imbued with the spirit of Haight-Ashbury 1967. It also featured cryptic, punning lyrics and wraithlike vocals that range from a low Fred Neil with gravel hoarseness to a barely there high wisp. Sadly, it was his only solo recording; more sadly, mental illness prevented Spence from reaching a fully functional state throughout the remainder of his lifetime. He died April 16, 1999, just two days short of his 54th birthday; the tribute album, More Oar: A Tribute to Alexander "Skip" Spence, featuring performances by Robert Plant, Beck, and Tom Waits, appeared just a few weeks later.
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http://pitchfork.com/news/35990-beck-and-wilco-cover-skip-spence/
By now, you know all about Beck's Record Club, the new project in which Mr. Hansen and a revolving cast of guests get together to cover an entire album's worth of songs in a day. The results are then posted on Beck's revamped (and suddenly great) website. For the first installment, Beck, producer Nigel Godrich, actor Giovanni Ribisi, and others have been splendidly rolling their way through The Velvet Underground & Nico; as of right now, they've gotten as far as "Run, Run, Run".
So far, Beck's been mum on what other albums might be coming up in Record Club. When he talked to Pitchfork last month, he'd only discuss the Digital Underground and Ace of Base albums that he almost covered.
However, we have now uncovered the identity of one of the albums in the Record Club pipeline.
Last month, Beck got together with Wilco in L.A. to record their version of the 1969 cult fave Oar by onetime Moby Grape/Jefferson Airplane member turned acid casualty Skip Spence. Beck's long been a public admirer of Spence; he covered Oar's "Halo of Gold" on the 1999 tribute album More Oar. We are good and excited to hear what happens when Beck and Jeff Tweedy, the owners of two of rock's most evocatively weary voices, sing on the same track.
In other Beck website news, he recently posted the second installment in his acoustic run through his 2008 album Modern Guilt. Check out "Gamma Ray" acoustic here.
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Wilco
Scottsdale, AZ 1995
Tempe, AZ 1997
Mesa, AZ 1997*
Hollywood, Ca 1999
Scottsdale, AZ 2002
Tempe, AZ 2004
Flagstaff, AZ 2005
Berkeley, Ca 2007
Tucson, AZ 2009
Tweedy
Hollywood, 2006
Uncle Tupelo
San Francisco, 1993
*opening for Sheryl Crow
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Longtime Volt fan here who's interest went from worshipping them and Farrar to not buying the Search or ACD. Oddly, I just won tickets for tonight (Mesa, AZ) after deciding to miss the last couple of shows following a dreadful Farrar gig at Nita's years back. So, I'm going and actually quite excited to give this band another chance, especially after reading this entire thread.
Here's an interview from today with Jay from the local New Times. A Tweedy nugget or two at the end for you folks not interested in SV/Farrar...
e
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When I first heard The Album I wasn't that excited or engaged by it....it reminded me a bit too much of SBS. I was wrong. Really enjoying this record and its production.
I've "spun" the leak, the cd and the vinyl. Buy the vinyl.
e
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W(TA) by a substantial margin.
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it never ceases to amaze me that a solid 40% of Wilco's "diehard fans" gripe about everything they do...
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A nice interview with Jeff regarding the new album and more:
http://wp.as.remarkablewit.com/2009/06/wilco-the-interview/
WILCO: The Interview
Are you under the impression this isn’t your life?
Do you dabble in depression? Is someone twisting a knife in your back?
Are you under attack? Wilco, Wilco will love you baby…”
The last time I saw Jeff Tweedy, he was giving a solo show in Burlington, Vermont. This was a few months ago. I crossed many states just to be there, and watch him perform, sans band, and cherry pick songs from his vast back catalog of my favorite music. He unveiled new songs like “Solitaire” and “Everlasting Everything,” and played a reconstituted “Spiders,” during which the audience of a few hundred sang in unison, “It’s good to be alone.” It was an amazing show, and well worth the drive.
I last interviewed Tweedy in 2004 for this magazine, when the Chicago-native had just gotten out of rehab to treat his addiction to pain killers and manage his panic disorder. The band was readying the release of A Ghost is Born, their ambitious follow-up to the career-defining Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The road that lead them to Ghost was fraught with internal struggles and external victories-in 1995, Tweedy launched Wilco after an acrimonious split with Uncle Tupelo co-captain Jay Farrar, who went on to found Son Volt. Their first album, A.M., sold poorly in the shadow of Son Volt’s Trace, but was a solid debut, featuring alt.-country gem after alt.-country gem. The 1996 double album Being There increased their critical standing and remains a major work in rock and roll, a “Catcher in the Rye” for music lovers. Tweedy’s musical partner at this time was band multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, who helped Tweedy realize the pop-tastic visions of 1999’s Summerteeth and reach the avant-garde heights of 2001’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But like all early Wilco members save bassist John Stirratt, Bennett (who sadly passes away this May) and the band eventually parted ways. His strained exit was captured in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which also documents the band’s struggle with their record company, Reprise, over Foxtrot’s commercial value-they would eventually leave the label for Nonesuch after Reprise squashed its release.
The story of Wilco 2.0 has been a fruitful one. A Ghost is Born’s epic guitar jams introduced the world at large to new member Nils Cline, a guitar hero’s guitar hero. Their incendiary concerts were immortalized on the live album Kicking Television, and the band’s new musical rapport (from adding members Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen to the lineup, which since 2001 has included the imaginative drum work of Glenn Kotche) was the highlight of last year’s Sky Blue Sky. Their new DVD, Ashes of American Flags, shows the band on the road, icing up, achieving lift off, and viewing the disappearance of small town America through their tour bus windows.
In June, they released their seventh LP, Wilco (The Album), the first record to feature the same lineup as the album before. With meditations on marriage and commitment (”One Wing,” “I’ll Fight”) a duet with Canadian singer/songwriter Feist (”You and I”) and some excellent rockers (”Bull Black Nova,” “Sonny Feeling”), it’s another great record from a band who seems incapable of making a bad one.
Jeff Tweedy in 2009 seems like a dude in a pretty good mood. He’d go on to rock Jazz Fest a few days after this interview, which would be the final show of a very long tour. We talked to Tweedy about Wilco (The Album), playing solo, and the spectre of “dad rock.”
When did you write the songs for this album?
Over the last year or so, since the last one come out. As opposed to the songs on the last record, which had been accumulating over the years, this one there’s really nothing that’s any older than Sky Blue Sky. I don’t think any of these songs were even around when we were recording Sky Blue Sky, so it’s a fresher batch.
What led you to record the record in New Zealand?
We went there and we were doing a benefit record with Neil Finn and the guys from Radiohead and Johnny Marr and we were having a great time and sounded really great in the studio, and Jim Scott was there with us, who had worked on our records before, and we did a little bit of recording, a little bit of demoing of different things. And we could get a lot of work done really quickly, because we were all set up and ready to go. When that project ended, we asked Neil Finn if he had anybody else coming into the studio for awhile, and if he had any open time, which he did, so we just stayed an extra nine days and knocked out the basics for almost the whole record.
Was it nice to record there?
Yeah, it’s a lovely place to stay, and I think the longest I ever stayed anywhere outside of the United States. So yeah, it got to be a home away from home, and for a large portion of that, my family lived with me, and Glenn and John’s families were there the whole time, and so it was a pretty lovely experience for everyone, really. Summer time there, it’s not summer time in Chicago, I can tell you that much.
How was it working with Feist on “You and I”?
It was great. She’s an amazing singer and a great friend. We got to be friends over the last year pretty quickly, and I have a lot of admiration for her and her records. So we were really glad that it worked out.
Did you spend a lot of time working on the lyrics to the songs, or was it more spur of the moment?
I spent a fair amount of time editing the lyrics and allowing the songs to kind of evolve. It’s a hard question to answer because anytime there’s anything worthwhile, it certainly “feels” like it happened on the spur of the moment, but it’s a composite of lots of spurs of the moment, hopefully. And over time, you catch up with those, and then you have full set of lyrics you’ve thought of and you feel comfortable singing.
I read that some of these songs were written in character.
I’ve always been sort of ambivalent about that approach to writing because I think it’s really hard to do, and I don’t think you every fully mask the person who’s writing; it usually comes through loud and clear, no matter how deeply into the third person you wanna get. But it’s something I’ve tried many times over the past few records, writing from different angles and perspectives, and sometimes it helps as a device to try to get a set of lyrics finished. But as it turned out, I thought this record ended up with more lyrics that used that approach than past records, in a character driven way.
What’s going on in “Bull Black Nova”? There’s a lot of blood in that song.
I don’t know what’s going on in that song. Well, nothing good is going on, I can tell you that. Except for the notion that however desperate to flee something that you wish you hadn’t done, you’re not going to be able to outrun it-so I guess that’s the moral of the story in that song. But I don’t know if I want to elaborate that much, at this point. It’s pretty there. [Laughs]
What’s the story behind “Wilco (The Song)”?
Initially, I thought it would be funny to write a song that sounded like an infomercial of some sort. I had other lyrics in the place of where I sing “Wilco” at one point, and I tried a lot of different things, but everything sounded too serious, including “let go,” “oh no,” and different things like that. I just kept coming back to “Wilco,” and that was certainly the most fun thing to sing when I was playing it for the other guys in the band. Eventually, it sounded silly to sing anything else, and it made the song a little funnier in our opinion.
Was that written for The Colbert Report or before?
We were playing around with it before The Colbert Report, and it seemed like it would be fun to play a song that wasn’t on any record and use the opportunity to play something that was exciting and new to us. Then all that Joe the Plumber crap started happening so we thought it would be funny to play “Wilco (The Song).”
It’s very catchy. I’ve been singing it all day in my head.
Could be worse, I guess. That’s sort of the unofficial motto for Wilco: could be worse.
The song “I’ll Fight” has some similarities to “On and On.” Do you agree?
Not that I hear, no, I don’t agree. I mean, I don’t doubt that it’s there, I’ve heard someone else say that, but musically, they’re very, very different, and emotionally they’re very, very different, so I don’t hear it. I mean, I hear there’s a repetitiveness in the choruses on the songs that are similar, but beyond that, I don’t think of them as being related. Other than, just as much as any songs I write are inherently related to each other.
In the song you sing “I’ll die like Jesus on the Cross,” How do you imagine that will play in different parts of the country?
I have no idea. First of all, I don’t know why it would be anything offensive to anybody, if that’s what you’re asking. It would never stop me even if I did think it was something offensive. I think from the character’s perspective, that’s definitely a noble way to die, for a principle. If somebody can’t understand that, they’re offended, interpreting the song with me equating myself with Jesus or whatever, that’s, as most is often is the case, based on their ignorance, and I have no sympathy for them.
Did you have a similar transformation to the one that you sing about in “Solitaire”?
Well, I mean, yes. I’ve definitely gone through a pretty major significant life change over the past couple of years. I think it’s pretty well-documented, and any healthier person who took a lot of pain killers, and was an addict, and struggled with those kind of things, I don’t know if you can have much more of a profound crossroads in your life than something like that. But having said that, I don’t know if that song is about that. I think it’s still sort of character-driven, in a way, I don’t know if I’m really singing from that experience. I never felt personally that I was “cold as gasoline,” so I can’t identify with that part of the song; except that I know people who I imagine to be able to look at the world without as much emotional upheaval as I tend to do.
With “You Never Know,” do those lyrics address your audience in a way?
Well, all lyrics address your audience. Every thing you write addresses the listener. So I don’t know if I know exactly what you mean. Am I telling our fans that, no [laughs]. No, it’s character-driven as well. Someone pretending to have a certain handle on things and that they don’t really have, when inevitably, you never know. It’s a pretty straightforward sentiment. In overwhelming evidence, you don’t ever know.
You say on the new DVD that music has the ability to create images in people’s minds. Do you think music has the power to stir memories as well?
Well, music seems to have an ability-beyond any other art forms, in my opinion-to stir up emotional memories. And, I guess, literal memories. The best I can get at it over the years, is that music exists to help people remember emotions. Not necessarily the emotions that are contained within the song itself, but most accurately the emotions that are contained within people that they have trouble getting to. And songs are functional in that way, in a lot of cases. And music, handed down over many, many years, helps people remember, not necessarily what happened, but what people felt like when things happened. And it has an ability to communicate over generations, the idea that we’re not that different. So, I can go on all day about that stuff. I love thinking about it. And in the movie, I’m embarrassed to hear myself thinking out loud about those types of things, because I don’t know if I’ve ever formulated anything I would regard as a coherent philosophy about it; it’s just something I like to think about.
Do you get images in your head when you play the songs live?
[Laughs] I don’t know. You’re more of a vessel, or a conduit, live-there’s a lot of things going on. You’re dealing with the technicalities of performing and you’re trying not to forget things. You’re muscles are doing things that they’ve learned to do to make the sound that you’re hoping to hear, so there’s multiple, multiple layers of things going on when you’re performing. In the studio, too. But I imagine I wouldn’t be able to remember the words if there weren’t images attached to them. That’s kind of the point, I suppose. I think it would be much more difficult to just memorize words. I think there’s gotta be some kind of mnemonic thing happening even if I’m not aware of it. Sometimes just the shape of my hands on the guitar neck will remind me of what the words are. It’s hard to remember the words of my songs sometimes, unless I’ve got a guitar in my hands.
Last year you guys did every Wilco song live. What lead you to do that, and what was like?
It was a blast, I was really proud of the band’s ability to possess the songs, I was happy that there weren’t many songs in the Wilco catalog that I despised playing, there were a couple, but for the most part, I felt pretty confident that I didn’t done anything harmful to the world by making up all these songs. And it’s been beneficial to the band. I mean, one of the other reasons behind it was that the band had been around longer than any other version of the band, and it just felt like, let’s go the whole way and know the whole catalog, and we can be fully Wilco from here on out. And that’s paid off, I think. It’s nice that with a minimal amount of practice now, we can pull out those songs, and stick them in the set. It’s just better feeling to have access to all that.
What’s it like having Nils Cline in the band?
It’s great. He’s an amazing musician, and more importantly, he’s a fantastic, lovely human being, and a close friend. It’s enormously helpful to have someone that brilliantly musical in the band, and it’s enormously helpful for me as a songwriter to have someone I can bounce an idea off of and say, does that really work musically, or is there an easier way to get from here to here musically? Nils isn’t alone in that regard, most everybody in the band knows their way around music theory better than I do. I mean I guess over the years, I know what I’m doing, but you get the idea.
What was your musical background?
I got a guitar when I was a kid and took lessons and I hated it. Then I started playing guitar entering in my teen years and picked it up. But I don’t really have a musical background other than listening to records and trying to play them.
For the I’m Not There soundtrack, you do a great cover of “Simple Twist of Fate.” Was that your pick?
The producers or the music supervisor asked me if I was interested, and I said absolutely. They had a, not necessarily a time period, but a specific one of Dylan’s characters, they wanted me to approach from a song perspective, so they sent me a CD based on that specific Bob Dylan. And so I just picked some songs and recorded a few of them, and that one ended up on the soundtrack, and another one ended up on a bonus version, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.” It’s a fantastic song. I love it.
Not a lot of lead singers in bands play solo shows. Why do you continue to do it?
It’s a really good thing for me to do. It keeps me in touch with what it takes to make a song work, by myself with a guitar. I’m allowed to play a much more spontaneous performance than would ever be popular with a six-piece band. I don’t really need to write a set list, I get up there and play whatever song pops into my head, so there’s a flow to the show that just kind of happens The environment, it would be very difficult, for Wilco as a band to do that, based on all the gear, and the amount of time it takes between songs for some people. It would be difficult for the crew to follow along in a situation like that. So it’s been a liberating experience, and at the time I think it’s good to be confronted with the sheer terror of playing by yourself some times.
I just saw you play a solo show in Vermont. Do you remember anything about it?
I don’t remember what I played or anything. I remember I had a good time. It was a really nice audience. I don’t have any negative memories of it at all… should I have some negative memories of it?
No, no, it was really great.
That’s encouraging.
How would you describe your relationship with your audience? On stage, you get into dialogues with them a lot.
I get into what, battles?
No, um, dialogues?
I don’t know-it’s hit or miss. Sometimes I get a good feeling, and a good rapport going, and sometimes I feel extremely painfully awkward. I try to be honest, I try to just be myself as much as can and relate what I’m thinking about, and sometimes I talk too much, sometimes I talk too little. I guess what I’m getting at is… I haven’t figured that out at all. I feel comfortable on stage and I feel comfortable talking to people. I’m very positive at this point in my life that there’s not anything I could do up there that would hurt anybody, or hurt myself; and in the long run, I doubt there’s anything I could do that would matter to much one way or the other that could hurt my career, or anything like that. Hopefully, I can make [a show] feel unique and special, and feel like there’s moments that are a one of a kind thing. Other than that, I just hope for the best whenever I open my mouth in between songs.
Your last album got a mixed critical reaction, and the term “dad rock” was thrown around. But it seemed like everyone eventually came around, especially after they heard the songs live. Did you think that the critical reaction you got was fair?
In the grand scheme of things, I thought that the critical reaction was probably better than I could have hoped for, and people were pretty warmly receptive to the record. If you make a bunch of records over a pretty long period of time, I think Wilco’s really ahead of the game. We haven’t been universally panned as far as I know, and I think that’s the closest we’ve come, and I consider that kind of a minor miracle.
But at the end of the day it doesn’t make any difference to me. I think that was a great record, and it was something I was very proud of and still am. It’s funny, the only thing I was curious about, in sort a detached way, was seeing some of the reviews, and some of the ways people interpreted things that weren’t my perceptions of the record, like the whole idea of it being mellow and things like that. I can’t say that anybody’s wrong or anything, they’re probably right. But I kind of got this theory in my head, that if we’d put some other song first besides “Either Way,” the perception might have been different. I’ve just gotten used to the first song really dictating the way people review the record. So with this record, I’d like to just get the first song out of the way and make an infomercial; hopefully it will cleanse the pallet for the rest of the record.
Yeah, that’d be funny if all the reviews were like, “Yeah, Wilco’s a totally joke band now.”
Yeah, the new album is totally about Wilco, and it’s a goofy pop record.
Do you think your fan base has done a good job of keeping up with your many changes? Do you think you’ve left any behind, or do you think they’ve all come along?
I don’t really have any thoughts on it, other than that, we tend to play to big audiences everywhere we go, bigger than I would have thought looking at record sales. A lot of the time we play way bigger places than I would imagine bands that sell more records than us even play. And it seems like it’s been a constant growth, on a lot of different levels. Personally, I feel like it’s been worth doing because artistically. It’s been a constant growth and evolution, and that’s something to feel good about. But if we lost people… I mean I’d be shocked if we didn’t lose people, but I guess the point is they need to be replaced by other people, if they’re going away. And then I think also there’s a curious faction in our fan base, of people who seem to stick around because they want to commiserate about it not being what it was, three records ago or something, but maybe they just enjoy being let down.
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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.
We were in the 8th row directly in front of Stirratt and were told numerous times by the aisle nazi to sit down. When we ignored his flashlight he came over and yelled. Show was great but the ushers were definitely telling people to stop dancing...
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I'll be rollin' south from PHX soon. Should be a great show!
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im gonna play it at a show im doing tuesday, if that means anything.
i feel really sad. jay was at a really rough point in his life.
It means a lot...wish i could attend the gig.
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When we came here today, all we wanted to say is how much we'll miss you.
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while i've enjoyed their post-YHF output plenty, it's no question for me that my favorite period of Wilco was Being There through YHF, and it's no question how big of role he played during that time.
he was def the McCartney to Jeff's 'Lennon', no question
...couldn't have put it better myself...
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stunned and truly saddened. he was a big part of three of the best records ever recorded.
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This is awful news...what a talent. Feel so sad for his family and friends...
The National
in Someone Else's Song
Posted
grabbed tix today for both the tucson and phoenix shows...can't wait. first time they've played az since '05.