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Marijn

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Posts posted by Marijn

    Wilco - 22 June, 2025, London (Royal Albert Hall)

    in After The Show

    Posted

    Sorry I missed you too Paul! We were way up in the Rausing Circle and by the time we made it to the ground floor, the corridors were already being cleared… so we just made it back to the underground.

     

    Have to say this was definitely in my top 3 of Wilco shows I’ve attended. Jeff’s voice was great! Proves that he still has it in him, so I hope we get some vocal power on the next record :)

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

    Wilco — 15 June 2025, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands (Best Kept Secret Festival)

    in After The Show

    Posted

    47 minutes ago, bböp said:

    Anyway, I would have liked to make it down to the Best Kept Secret but if I'm not mistaken, it was not possible to buy just a ticket for the day Wilco was playing? Did you go to all days of the fest, or did I somehow miss out on the single-day tickets being sold? If the latter, well I guess in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't venture down for just a one-hour set. Sounds like it was about as good as it could have been given everything, but I'm glad you'll get to see a longer show in London.

     

    There were indeed single day tickets available for a whopping 130 euro + service fees. I grabbed mine earlier this year, so they were probably already sold out when you checked. Fortunately, I did enjoy a couple of other bands during the day: Waxahatchee of course, Elephant (Dutch indie-folk), Blanco White (imagine Robin Pecknold fronting Calexico), Youth Lagoon, and Michael Kiwanuka was a pleasant surprise to end a sultry summer's day on the shore of the lake, right before a nice breezy bike ride home.

     

    Anyway, hope to see you next weekend, Paulus!

    • Thanks 1

    Wilco — 15 June 2025, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands (Best Kept Secret Festival)

    in After The Show

    Posted

    Seeing your favorite band play a venue near your own home might seem like a given for many American VC’ers, but as a resident of the ever-so-idyllic village of Berkel-Enschot in the south of the Netherlands, you might think things are a bit more complicated.

     

    Or are they?

     

    Fortunately, the adjacent town of Tilburg has a pretty vivid music scene, with 013 as its primary venue (Wilco played there in 1999 and 2011 — it’s where I first met bböp, the50ftqueeny and samuel70; needless to say while we were all queueing). It’s not the prettiest building and they tend to book obscure Norwegian metal bands for 90% of the time, but the 90s indie kids like myself get the occasional treat: I recall stellar performances by Death Cab For Cutie, Drive-by Truckers and The Tallest Man on Earth in recent years.

     

    And then there are the festivals. Did I mention we have some excellent festivals in the area? There’s Roadburn, which can best be described as “SXSW for metalheads”, there was Woo Hah, that hosted some of the biggest names in hip hop, there’s Rebirth if you’re into what I call “brainless tonedeaf poltergeist riot noise”. And there’s Best Kept Secret, think Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza — all in European proportions, of course.

     

    Best Kept Secret is a relatively young festival - the first edition was held in 2013 - which, despite its name, has hosted an impressive number of big-name acts over the years. Wilco played the festival once before, in 2016, sharing the stage with Beck, Editors and Beach House. Other headliners in the past decade include Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Nick Cave and Bon Iver — hardly any “best kept secrets”, even for Dutch standards.

     

    One aspect that sets Best Kept Secret apart from other European festivals is its location; the festival site is located on the banks of a lake, part of the "Beekse Bergen"; the largest wildlife zoo in the country. And so, although I'm not entirely sure about the band's schedule on this tour, chances are that Tweedy & co spent their Sunday morning spotting The Big Five in a boat or on top of a bus.

     

    Wildlife safari or not, kicking off with Company In My Back, Evicted and Handshake Drugs, the band definitely seemed energized, despite an almost certain jet lag. Then, things started slowing down with If I Ever Was A Child, IATTBYH, and Bird Without A Tail, before picking up the pace again with Box Full Of Letters and Annihilation. Setlist-wise, the best kept secret of the day turned out to be the appearance of Quiet Amplifier, right before moving back to the safe zone: Impossible Germany, Jesus, Etc. and I Got You.

     

    “We have way too many songs”, Jeff muttered near the end of the 1-hour time slot. “I’m not gonna talk, let’s play some music!” It turned out to be the only visit to Banter Corner of the day, apart from a short but factual “Beautiful day!” halfway through the set.

     

    The band seemed to be drowning on the enormous open air stage (appropriately named “ONE”), being way too high and far away from the crowd, with two giant television cameras blocking the view of a big part of the front area. Those front rows, by the way, were almost exclusively occupied by millennial kids in black, securing their spot hours in advance for the next headlining act, Deftones. Most of them seemed to appreciate the up-tempo rockers, but were visibly disinterested during the slower part of the set. In comparison, Waxahatchee played the smaller indoor stage (“TWO”) earlier in the afternoon; they managed to get way more interaction with the crowd.

     

    Which brings me to my personal Hot Take Of The Day™: Wilco is not - and has never been - a true headliner for festivals other than their own. Somehow the combination of an enormous stage and a limited time slot appears to make the band perform on automatic pilot. Some sloppy parts, a couple of lyrical flubs — still the best band in the world, but not the adventurous and innovative Wilco that is enchanting the Antwerp amphitheater at the time of writing.

     

    It’s the biggest reason why I’m glad that the band never really took off in this part of the world. Artists with a similar profile, like The National, The War On Drugs and even Sufjan Stevens, have moved on to the big, soulless, corporate concert halls on Amsterdam’s outskirts, whereas Wilco can still be admired in the more authentic and traditional venues like Paradiso, Tivoli and, hopefully once again, 013.

     

    Let’s see if my theory still holds up next Sunday in the renowned Royal Albert Hall. Any VC’ers to look out for?

     

    Setlist:
    Company In My Back

    Evicted

    Handshake Drugs

    If I Ever Was A Child

    IATTBYH

    Bird Without A Tail

    Box Full Of Letters

    Annihilation

    Hummingbird

    Quiet Amplifier

    Impossible Germany

    Jesus, etc.

    I Got You

    IMG_4797.jpeg

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2

    RSD 2024: The Whole Love Expanded

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Heard the expanded edition for the first time today and I do believe that the SiriusXM and iTunes songs are from different sessions. However, the differences are so incredibly minor (I was only convinced after hearing the final "ohhhh!" in I Might) that it just confirms to me how tight of a live band they really are :)

    • Like 2

    RSD 2024: The Whole Love Expanded

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    I can't find any information about a SiriusXM session in that period. Could it be that the tracks from that session (+ Cruel To Be Kind) are originally from the iTunes session too? If that's the case, the only previously unreleased tracks on here are the Rising Red Lung and Sunloathe demos. Not sure if that's worth the 80-90 euro it's listed for...

    Most Anticipated Albums 2024

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    On 1/3/2024 at 8:13 PM, Boss_Tweedy said:

     

    Here you go:

     

    https://colinmeloy.substack.com/p/studio-diary-part-12?r=5m0no&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post&fbclid=IwAR12WpIaWlw9vukGzfnAV1ZLzOP7KVYYE90Ts3KUHdWeDnz41B7PFr3Pykw

     

    If you can't open it here's a quote from the Substack entry:

     

    Today, I am almost entirely certain that this will be a double album, despite the usual warnings from the people with better commercial/financial sense than I — that double LPs are invariably more expensive and fewer people buy them. 

     

    This was published by Colin in mid October, and in December he posted that the recording process was complete. 

     

    "As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again", out June 14th.

     

    Double LP - not a double album unfortunately: https://shop.season-of-mist.com/the-decemberists-as-it-ever-was-so-it-will-be-again-double-lp-coloured

     

    AGIB 20 Year Anniversary

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    From a 2004 Spin interview:

    Quote

    Several of the songs on A Ghost Is Bornare the result of a process the band calls “fundamentals”: Tweedy played an acoustic guitar and sang random lyrics while the others listened in another room; the rest of the band then performed along with Tweedy while he remained in isolation (they could hear him, but he couldn’t hear them). These half-hour sessions were burned onto CDs; Tweedy would later listen to the discs at home and try to turn fragments into individual songs.


    https://www.spin.com/2019/11/wilco-jeff-tweedy-a-ghost-is-born-july-2004-interview-a-ghost-story/

    AGIB 20 Year Anniversary

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    On 3/2/2024 at 6:40 AM, TCP said:

    The timing makes sense for a fall release. Hopefully this means we finally get the Wilco Book on vinyl.


    The Wilco Book CD is a compilation of the (12?) Fundamentals session recordings, right? Would love to hear more of those!

    Most Anticipated Albums 2024

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    On 12/21/2023 at 3:39 AM, Boss_Tweedy said:

    The Decemberists are set to release a double album some time next year. That's at the top of my list right now. 

    Any source online? Can’t find anything about it (yet), but I’m very hopeful for a return to form after their last (mediocre at best) album.

    Wilco on nugs.net subscription

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    @u2roolz, your list seems to be complete. The first couple of FOH's were released in batches, and according to my PayPal history the monthly release cycle only began in March 2020, so that would explain the short gap.

     

    Somewhat unrelated, but 2023 seems to be the first year we don't get a brand new Roadcase release. Of course there was the 100th Roadcase celebration back in February - but that was a show from September 2022 - and they fixed the SBS22 releases, but that's about it. They played 71 shows this year FFS!

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