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Midway through the final night of a three-night run at the Beacon Theatre, during one of his sporadic audience check-ins, Jeff got interrupted by some louder-than-usual song requests shouted from the crowd. He has, by now, perfected his method of dealing with rogue requests, telling the requesters that they must fill out the “requisite forms” on Wilco’s Web site.

 

“I think it’s a pretty good way to do it,” Jeff said. “We’ll get to all the songs some of you want to hear.”

 

What was clear — and I think Jeff himself even said at one point, if not in so many words — was that he and his bandmates enjoyed getting to come to New York for a few days and play their music for sold-out crowds in a nice theater. (Perhaps Jeff didn’t enjoy so much the audience member who mistook his hair for a hat, but that’s another story that we probably don’t have time to get into here.)

 

At any rate, I suppose that the vast majority of those crowds at the Beacon enjoyed attending the shows just as much as the Wilco men did playing them, though again while most of the folks on the floor tonight that I could see stood up from the start, only a fraction of them in my eyeline seemed to show consistently visible signs of life. And in my humble opinion, what’s the point of standing if you’re just gonna cross your arms and not move a muscle? (During a moment of distraction, I admit my mind briefly wandered to the famous Bruce Springsteen admonition, “Is anybody alive out there?” And then I wondered what Bruce, as a younger man, would have been like as an audience member at one of his shows. Would he have been “low key” like Jeff? But I digress…)

 

For those who might have been expecting a few more nuggets on Night 3, well, they probably walked away slightly disappointed. There were only four songs — Muzzle Of Bees, You And I, Ashes Of American Flags and Monday — that hadn’t been played at either of the other two shows. Of Muzzle, Jeff alluded to all the recent talk about the 20^th anniversary of A Ghost Is Born when he introduced it by saying, “This song came out 20 years ago. That’s what they say.”

 

As for two of the other non-repeated tunes, they came in the encore. Ashes was a nice surprise to lead things off and to lead right into an accelerated version of Spiders (Kidsmoke), which culminated in the usual audience clapping and “ba ba bas.” Jeff tried to up the stakes, as he usually does, by saying no one was too cool to participate, that the crowd could do better than the Saturday night audience before admitting they didn’t play the song on Saturday and then finally pausing for a moment and bringing everyone back together for one last unified chant. But surprisingly, the show wasn’t over yet because Jeff — as he doesn’t always do — took the opportunity to play Monday on a Monday night (but sadly, cut the ensuing Outtasite (Outta Mind), which was on the printed setlist).

 

In terms of visits to Banter Corner, Jeff didn’t swing by too much on this final night at the Beacon. Must have been saving his strength for the upcoming Solid Sound Festival. He did have a moment with Nels toward the end and after Impossible Germany, though, staying more over toward Nels’ side even after the conclusion of the guitarist’s solo when Jeff usually drifts back to the center of the stage to play with Pat for a bit. Jeff and Nels exchanged a few words after the song as Jeff gestured toward Nels to receive the deserved round of applause and then the two shared a brief hug, which doesn’t always happen. “You keep playing like that, we’re gonna buy you a new guitar, one that’s not so beat up,” Jeff said to Nels, who had a good laugh.

 

And one other amusing moment came after You And I when a guy toward the front must have apparently said something or requested a song that Jeff heard and responded by gently calling him out and reminding him he wasn’t at a Neil Young show. It happened right at the moment when Jeff’s guitar tech brought out a black guitar, either a Gibson or Epiphone Les Paul I think, that was reminiscent of Neil’s “Old Black,” and Jeff reiterated it wasn’t a Neil show but he was going to use this guitar, which he then did to great effect on I’m Always In Love (though there were a few lyric struggles, ahem).

 

So now it’s onto Solid Sound, and specifically this much-anticipated “Deep Cuts” set. Will we see some truly “out there” tunes, or more likely album tracks that haven’t been played as often over the years? None of the shows on Wilco’s summer tour so far have really given much indication of what Jeff and Co. have in store, so I guess we’ll all just have to pile into a field in North Adams, Mass., on Friday night and find out for ourselves.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 3 at the Beacon (as mentioned, Outtasite (Outta Mind) was listed as the final song on the printed setlist, but wasn’t played):

 

Via Chicago

Infinite Surprise

Handshake Drugs

At Least That’s What You Said

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Meant To Be

Muzzle Of Bees

You And I

I’m Always In Love

Misunderstood

Forget The Flowers

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Hummingbird

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

1 hour ago, worldrecordplayer said:

I have a different take about the crowd of both nights. I was sitting just a couple of rows behind and towards Pat from you on Friday. Everyone stood both nights. I had no talkers around me either night, no obnoxiously drunk people, and nobody who wasn't totally into the music. I had full enjoyment of the music. Both of which I fully enjoyed. 

 

Guess we just saw different things or had different expectations. While I didn't see any obnoxiously drunk folks or blatant talkers or anything of that sort, I saw a fair amount of what I would call blasé or disinterested-looking folks. There was a couple in front of me where the female half sat for almost the entire show and looked like she would rather have been anywhere else. There were also two women seated to my right who barely made it through a quarter of the show before leaving for refills of their drinks and snacks and then, a few songs later, left for good and never returned. During the "rock" encore, I didn't see many people around me doing much rocking out. The second the show was over, after a frenetic I'm A Wheel, everyone around me just kind of turned and filed out.

 

Like I said, maybe we just have different standards for audiences. This wasn't the worst crowd I've been in for a Wilco show by a long shot — it was perfectly fine — and it didn't affect my personal enjoyment of the gig. I was just reporting what I observed and felt. Glad that you enjoyed both nights so far and had what you felt to be a good crowd around you.

4 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta

 

vern on the Green in Central Park? Unfortunately it's a bit rich for my blood...

2 hours ago, chaslor said:

Here's a look at my look of the show. 

 

NCMA Photos

 

Great shots as usual, Charles (especially the candid of my man, Ashwin)! Nice to get a sense of the setup at the front of the stage there. So was it reserved seating? Or GA seated? I seem to remember there not being that stanchion/barrier thing across the front last time and them letting people actually sit on the steps of the stage, but that could be a faulty memory. I also remember someone tossing an empty beer can that hit John and Jeff not being happy about it.

Thanks to VCer Nalafej for posting a link to the setlist for this PRIVATE gig. I don't expect any reports from this one — although if anyone happened to be lucky enough to go, by all means please chime in with details — but just starting a thread as a matter of record keeping since we at least know what was played.

 

It's not unprecedented for Jeff and Co. to play the occasional corporate and/or private/invitation-only gig. I'm sure they were very well compensated.

 

Here was the setlist, according to a photo of the printed setlist posted online (can't verify if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Infinite Surprise

Handshake Drugs

Side With The Seeds

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

One Wing

Cousin

You Never Know

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Hummingbird

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Whole Love

Meant To Be

A Shot In The Arm

----------------------------------

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Given all the social media posts and various tributes of late, you might have expected Jeff to say something or at least somehow acknowledge today’s 20^th anniversary of the release date of what more than a few people consider to be one of his band’s career-defining records, A Ghost Is Born. But in all the years I’ve been going to Wilco shows, I’ve rarely known Jeff to be sentimental — at least outwardly so — about things like specific anniversary dates for his own work, and I don’t think he’s about to start now.

 

So it wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that on the second night of a three-night run at the Beacon Theatre 20 years to the day when AGIB officially came out (and 20 years and a couple of weeks from a memorably sweaty show at Irving Plaza to celebrate said release), Jeff never made a single mention of the anniversary. Instead of looking back, among other things, he took the time to mention the birthday of a Wilcrew member, guitar/bass/keyboard tech Austin, and said Austin requested that everyone not sing “Happy Birthday” to him — which, of course, led to everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to him.

 

You could argue that even if Jeff didn’t say anything about AGIB, the setlist was geared to celebrate that album. But again, despite the inclusion of At Least That’s What You Said, Theologians and the show-closing I’m A Wheel, which weren’t played on Night 1, there wasn’t any unusual emphasis on the record than in an average set. As usual, Wilco mixed and matched songs from many of its records and swapped out a more-than-respectable amount of tunes played on Night 1 for others from its sizable catalog. By my count, 15 of the 24 songs played on Night 2 weren’t played on Night 1.

 

If anything, Jeff might have been slightly less chatty tonight than the previous evening (though he couldn’t help but comment on the presence of a guy in the front row who resembled an Empire Burlesque-era Bob Dylan. "You know who you are,” Jeff said. “We’re under a watchful gaze.”) Perhaps it was because the show was “flying by for me.” He even took a sip of whatever was in his water bottle at one point, saying he was trying to stay hydrated amid the heat wave roiling the Northeast this weekend (but which, as regular fans know, he almost never does because of his neurosis about having to pee if he drinks anything).

 

In one of his longer visits to Banter Corner, after Jesus, etc., Jeff apparently enjoyed the crowd’s participation compared with a night earlier. “Thanks for singing along,” Jeff said. “You really made that crowd last night sound like shit.” When Pat looked over at him with a sort-of mock scolding expression, Jeff continued, “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I just call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

 

To be honest, I haven’t been particularly impressed by the crowds either night — at least in my general proximity. Is it just because most of the fanbase just got old? Or that in a fairly big venue like the Beacon, there are still seemingly so many casual fans and/or people who have been dragged along? Or is it just your typical New York crowd (i.e. a little too cool for school?) I guess it’s maybe some combination of the three, but sometimes I looked around and wondered why half of the people were even there. Sigh.

 

Anyway, none of that really seemed to have much effect on the band’s performance during a tidy 1-hour, 57-minute show. Jeff and Co. were having a good old time with one another on stage, with Jeff joking when Nels’ strapped on his gaudy white double-neck axe for Dawned On Me that Nels “wins that guitar every night” following his Impossible Germany solo. Nels then proceeded to start the song with by scraping the strings with a small spring he uses but then getting that spring tangled in the strings for a second and leaving it dangling there, which caused Glenn to crack up.

 

And then we got a variation of “the rock block” to close out, led by the always slightly weird, Red-Eyed-And-Blue-less I Got You (At The End Of The Century), which allowed Pat to do some modified post-birthday windmills and such. That encore probably also surprised the guy in the row behind me who was obviously looking at Setlist.fm and informing his companion that the encore was likely to feature Via Chicago, California Stars and Spiders. (Side note: Why do people do this? I suppose I understand the need to want to know what’s coming, but is Wilco the only band that occasionally changes their setlist? Does every band play the same encore every night? Sigh, pt. 2.)

 

As always with a run that’s more than two nights, it will be interesting to see how things change up again from Nights 1 and 2. I don’t necessarily expect any true “Deep Cuts” to come out now, not before Friday’s Solid Sound set, but I won’t be relying on Setlist.fm to make my predictions, either.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 at the Beacon (there were no changes/omissions from the printed setlist):

 

Infinite Surprise

War On War

At Least That’s What You Said

Handshake Drugs

Random Name Generator

Side With The Seeds

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Meant To Be

What Light

Theologians

Cousin

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Box Full Of Letters

Jesus, etc.

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Dawned On Me

13 hours ago, knotgreen said:

BBop, are you posting from the Beacon?!

 

A good show, though I was seated in front of what might’ve been the world’s nicest heckler: “So generous!” and “Tweedy Sweetie!” 
 

 

Ha, no I only posted right before I left before Night 2 because the site was being super glitchy for me earlier.

Less than 24 hours after leaving the stage in a pastoral setting outside our nation’s capital, the men of Wilco were back on one in the big city — in the heart of the Upper West Side, at one of New York’s most famed music venues, to be exact — to kick off a three-night run leading into next week’s Solid Sound Festival. The contrast between the Filene Center at Wolf Trap National Park For The Performing Arts and the Beacon Theatre is certainly palpable, though I think both venues share some of the same drawbacks for those of us who prefer to enjoy a rock show in a certain way.

 

Assuming you can attend each show, I’ll just say upfront that three nights of Wilco anywhere is of course preferable to just a single gig simply because you know that Jeff and Co. aren’t likely to play the same setlist from night to night. And of course, the Beacon is one of the legendary rooms in New York City, made famous by multi-night runs by the likes of the Allman Brothers and Steely Dan over the years not to mention innumerable one-off events.

 

But like any seated theater, you run into issues like dynamic pricing of premium seats and the standing vs. sitting dilemma. As to the former, I know for a fact that you could have bought front row center tickets a couple of weeks after the initial ticket on sale for the tidy sum of just over $500 apiece, including fees, although I guess the prices eventually went down when apparently few were willing to pay — hence “dynamic” pricing. (I know someone who was later able to buy a front-row seat for just under $200 with fees.) And then you have the perennial issue of standing vs. sitting, which fortunately for me didn’t rear its ugly head last night but I know did for some people. I played the game for a little while, when the initial excitement of the first few songs gave way to the initial slow moment when most everyone retreated to their seats during Pittsburgh. But I knew that the familiarity of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart would bring at least some of sitters back to their feet, so I stood back up and fortunately was able to remain that way for the remainder of the show, although I was fully prepared to get “shouted down.”

 

Such is the tension at theater shows if you want to stand, but obviously the band just does its thing regardless. I think unless it’s just egregious (i.e. front row all sitting with arms folded or something), Jeff is quite content not to suggest the audience do anything despite someone occasionally imploring him to “tell people to stand up.” Actually about the only thing Jeff really implores the audience to do is to clap along at the end of Spiders (Kidsmoke), and some of his funniest quips come out while he is urging people on. Tonight, for example, I believe he once again used Milwaukee (on a Monday!) as a point of comparison, pitting this crowd against a recent one — which I think didn’t quite have the same effect, rivalry-wise, as when he did so in Chicago.

 

From a setlist standpoint, the first nine songs of Night 1 at the Beacon and the previous evening at Wolf Trap were identical with the exception of Pittsburgh being swapped in for At Least That’s What You Said in the fourth slot (which tends to happen at indoor theater shows). But then the 10^th spot in the Beacon set provided one of the night’s biggest and most pleasant surprises: the granting of a request for Summer Teeth — the first full-band version of the song in more than four years. Actually it was two requests via the band’s Web site, to be exact, as Jeff clarified. “I hope two of you are happy,” Jeff said afterward.

 

Whether or not Jeff was happy, he did have a couple of interesting forays over to Banter Corner over the course of the show. One came when he first checked in with the crowd about a third of the way through the show. He joked that he always remembered the Beacon “because the exit signs have the Black Flag font. That’s how I know where I am.” A little later, after getting an especially low-slung acoustic guitar for Passenger Side, he remarked that he felt like Johnny Ramone: “This is the lowest I’ve had a guitar in 20 years.” Then Jeff told an anecdote about when Tommy Stinson of the Replacements joined the band to play Color Me Impressed and Jeff asked him whether he wanted to play guitar or bass and Tommy replied, “Whichever has the lowest strap.”

 

The other funny moment in the show involved, of course, the acknowledgement of Pat’s birthday. Near the end of the main set, a loud fan yelled out, “Happy birthday, Pat!” and Jeff practically shushed him as if he was trying to keep it under wraps for some reason and the rest of the band quickly launched into the next song. That got me thinking that maybe some sort of cake or other shenanigans were going to be coming out in the encore or something.

 

When the band returned to the stage for said encore, however, there was no props in sight. Jeff simply expressed the birthday wishes aloud on behalf of his other bandmates and the Wilcrew. “We have a new 35-year-old in the band,” Jeff told the crowd before leading a round of “Happy Birthday.” “At least that was the age he was when he joined the band.” And before the band kicked off its final set of the evening with Falling Apart (Right Now), featuring the birthday boy on the B-benderish Telecaster, Jeff said, “55 couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

 

Aw. Indeed, it was just that kind of show for Wilco’s long-awaited return to the Big Apple. Despite the inflated ticket prices, a weekend heat wave, the less-comfortable-than-I-remember seats and probably a few more reasons to be grumpy, ultimately, most everyone seemed content to look past it all and just be glad to be there — whether they were just coming for the one show or had one or two more to look forward to.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 at the Beacon (didn’t get a look at a printed setlist, so can’t say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Misunderstood

Forget The Flowers

Handshake Drugs

Pittsburgh

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Meant To Be

If I Ever Was A Child

Summer Teeth

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Passenger Side

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Whole Love

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

27 minutes ago, nalafej said:

 

Well, I wouldn't have trusted setlist.gm without that pic from A Shot in the Arm on facebook, but 2 references feels right. Surprised they did a full gig for the private show.

I heard it was a 90-minute set, fwiw. Which makes sense under standard contract terms.

1 hour ago, nalafej said:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/wilco/2024/the-revelry-charlotte-nc-3357ec61.html

Nice. I guess that blasted setlist.fm does have its uses from time to time. 

6 hours ago, nalafej said:

Thank you bbop! I wonder if we should do the same for the private gig they played the evening before this?

Are you aware of any details regarding that gig? I was aware of it, but don’t really know any specific details…

Ah, the large-scale summer show at a venue like the venerable Filene Center at Wolf Trap National Park For The Performing Arts. So pleasant, so chill, so made for the maximum enjoyment of the maximum number of people. Is it an indoor show? An outdoor show? Would you call it a shed? I don’t know exactly how to describe it, to be honest. I just know I’m glad that I don’t have to see all the artists I like at places like that…

 

Nothing against Wolf Trap — I’m going to use its common moniker — of course, or places like it such as Ravinia outside of Chicago or Tanglewood outside of Boston. As I said, they were designed to be summertime pastoral retreats for a relatively large number of people to escape to and enjoy music. Wolf Trap has a large wooden covered pavilion with orchestra-level seats as well as a balcony with box seats and more seats behind those, and then a general admission lawn beyond the pavilion, where people arrive early to stake out their spots and picnic before the show. So in general, it’s not necessarily the kind of place that lends itself to a rock show where people are standing and participating the entire time.

 

Forgive me if I’m being overly judgmental here, but if the row I was sitting in was any indication, this was the kind of place where people want to hear Heavy Metal Drummer and then leave early to beat the traffic. Now I know there were also plenty of serious fans in attendance who stayed “ba ba ba-ing” to the end of Spiders (Kidsmoke), but my point is that with this size and type of venue, the crowd just runs the gamut from casual to diehard and everywhere in between. So it’s hard to get any sort of real feel from the audience, and I imagine Jeff and Co. just trying to entertain as many people for as long as they can.

 

Thus we got the crowd-pleasing (and somewhat surprising, given recent setlists) Being There opening duo of Misunderstood and Forget The Flowers, followed by the A Ghost Is Born tandem of Handshake Drugs and At Least That’s What You Said. It wasn’t enough to get most people in the orchestra section out of their seats for the duration, but nevertheless made for a rollicking start to the show. That continued along, a few songs later, with Meant To Be, the Cousin closing track that continues to remain on the setlist, and then Theologians complete with the riff ending.

 

While Jeff didn’t have the best night from a vocal standpoint, obviously flubbing lyrics during I’m Always In Love and Falling Apart (Right Now), he was nevertheless in a relatively chatty mood — though his banter was usually aimed at the mass audience, rather than any single person or group that caught his eye (with the exception of a guy with a crutch during Spiders).

 

For instance, Jeff complimented the crowd — and the setting as a whole — after Cousin. “You guys look amazing,” he said. “Earlier, when the sun was setting, it looked like the back of a Meat Puppets record. That’s cool.” A few songs later, he commented on his periodic check-ins with the audience: “Every once in a while, I’m gonna ask how you’re doing. Otherwise, we don’t know. It’s in the rule book.”

 

One of Jeff’s other visits to Banter Corner came after Meant To Be when he joked that it was a good song to play on the day before the Summer Solstice because of the lyric, "Each day is longer than the one before..." and how when he sang the song the next day, that wouldn't be true. Another came when I guess some folks closer to the stage must have been asking about his hip replacement at a rare moment when he actually had to do a little tuning on stage. “You guys know a lot,” Jeff said after If I Ever Was A Child. “Hip’s doing good. Let’s hear it for titanium, though. It looked like I was (getting) a bamboo one until my insurance came through.”

 

Such is life, I guess, when you open your life up via platforms such as The Tweedy Show and the Starship Casual, and I saw T-shirts from both sported by people at the Wolf Trap gig. But if that is what it takes to bring more people into the Wilco fold at this stage of the band’s career, then I guess Jeff must be willing to endure the occasional personal intrusion. And if more fans bring about more venues like Wolf Trap — from time to time, anyway — then I guess it’s something I can accept. Certainly it didn’t seem like Jeff or the band had any, ahem, reservations.

 

“It’s been a really wonderful night,” Jeff said near the end of the main set. “Thanks so much for having us.”

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (there weren’t any changes/omissions from the printed setlist I saw):

 

Misunderstood

Forget The Flowers

Handshake Drugs

At Least That’s What You Said

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Meant To Be

If I Ever Was A Child

Theologians

Cousin

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Hummingbird

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

I’m Always In Love

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Heavy Metal Drummer

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it down for this show, but in the interest of recordkeeping, if nothing else, I figured I should at least crosspost the setlist over here as posted by the good folks at Wilcoworld. If anyone was at the show, please chime in with some thoughts/reports/etc.

 

For now, here was the setlist as played, according to Wilcoworld:

 

Infinite Surprise

Handshake Drugs

War On War

At Least That's What You Said

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Meant To Be

Company In My Back

Cousin

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

I'm Always In Love

Hummingbird

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Dawned On Me

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

-----------------------------------------------

Via Chicago

California Stars

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

3 hours ago, aricandover said:

 I just hit me that you're Ken Barlow's uncle 

Is that really an aricandover sighting? After all this time? Hey Jim! 

35 minutes ago, keno said:

What was Jeff saying about Carol’s on stage? Something about not having played a song since they played Carol’s in October 2022?

 

We couldn’t quite make it out, but had come to the Salt Shed directly from Carol’s earlier that day, and had gone to the surprise Carol's show, so it was kinda funny to hear him referencing it. 

He was just referring to the song Falling Apart (Right Now), which he said they had played during their set(s) at Carol’s and was pretty much made for Carol’s.

After an early pall caused by a medical emergency of some sort — the affected person apparently had to be carried out on a stretcher, so it seemed to be more serious than your standard concert fainting incident — Night 2 of Wilco’s two-night hometown run at the Salt Shed “fairgrounds” finished in gloriously rocking fashion on another second straight lovely Chicago evening.

 

From my vantage point, it was difficult to tell exactly what what going on but I’m sure others had a better view of it, including the band, which fortunately was between songs — I Am My Mother and Cruel Country, to be exact — when one of their crew members and then their tour manager came out on stage to alert them to the situation. As opposed to the other night in Milwaukee when a fainting incident occurred mid-song and Jeff signaled to his bandmates to continue to playing and later explained that he had been brought up to never stop playing in a situation like that because, in bars, usually things would only get worse when there wasn’t any music happening, this time he calmed the situation down just with his voice. He said, in part, “If the person on the stretcher can hear me, Wilco loves you. … Now let’s get back to saying ‘I love you,’ to each other.” We never did find out what happened to the person, but hopefully they are all right.

 

At any rate, after that early delay briefly dampened the mood, it was pretty much back to normal after a song or two. Over the course of the next few songs, Jeff was once again poking fun at parts of the audience (spotting several young faces draped across the rail, he pointed at them and said, “You’re the youngest people I’ve seen in front in a long time. Did you get lost?”); at himself (during If I Ever Was A Child, he hit a clearly wonky chord and made a sheepish face and afterward joked, “I apologize for the D-flat major I inserted into that song. I thought it would be an adventurous substitution, but I was wrong.”); and at local radio station WXRT, whose DJ Marty Lennartz seems to introduce just about every Wilco show in Chicago and did once again at the Salt Shed (before Evicted, Jeff thanked XRT for its support over the years, noting how it had played the first single off Cousin like so many other songs Wilco has put out over the years. “XRT has played 105 songs we put out,” Jeff quipped. “All one time.”)

 

By my count, 16 of the 25 songs played on Night 2 weren’t played on Night 1 so that exceeded my expectations a bit in terms of how much the setlist would change from night to night. And of those swapouts, there were certainly a few notable ones. Show (and Being There) opener Misunderstood broke a long absence of songs from that album, while we also finally got the long-awaited return of the Cousin album closer Meant To Be, for which the band had made and promoted that roller-skating video a few months ago and then inexplicably stopped playing after said video came out. I’m not going to say we suggested both of those in the recap from Night 1, but ahem. “We better start playing that one more, or it’s gonna be the You Never Know of 2024,” Jeff said afterward.

 

Speaking of which, probably the most surprising return to the set at this show was You Never Know, the Wilco (The Album) single that Jeff admitted the band simply stopped playing for some reason. The band dusted it off a handful of times last year, including once in Iceland, but it really has been very sporadically performed since the original WtA album cycle and that’s too bad because it’s still quite a fun tune. It seems like Jeff and Co. have fun playing it as well, so hopefully it will find a second life somehow. (And incidentally, maybe someone can help remind me, but wasn’t that why Nels started playing that double neck guitar he uses on Dawned On Me in the first place? In order to play the George Harrison-style slide? When they played YNK tonight, Nels simply used his gold Les Paul.) “I think we should start playing that song again,” Jeff said afterward. “It felt really good. Oh well, too late now. Can we reissue it as a single?”

 

What else of note? Well, I guess you could say that Nels kind of had an interesting night. He sported these loose-fitting, vertically striped pants, which I guess you might say is slightly different than maybe we’re used to seeing from him — I guess I only ever remember seeing him in solid colors or jeans — and they kind of made him seem even taller than he is. For the first time I can remember, he also had a standing lap-steel station, instead of sitting down on a stool to play the instrument. He only played it a couple of times, on I Am My Mother and Jesus, etc., but it was just weird to see him standing up with the lap steel on top of a roadcase. It was especially notable on Jesus, when there were apparently some technical issues and once or twice Nels had to wander around the other side of the roadcase to check on a plug or something. Kind of odd.

 

Glenn, meanwhile, had to take a bit of grief from Jeff in the encore as he did the other night in Milwaukee. Jeff told the Salt Shed crowd that he was hesitant to start the count-in that starts Falling Apart (Right Now) because Glenn “might be e-mailing a cymbal company.” (This was an extension of a joke from soundcheck in Milwaukee when Glenn messed up the start of the song because he was on his phone, which of course Jeff couldn’t let him live down.)

 

Besides what I’ve already mentioned, there weren’t too many other noteworthy visits to Banter Corner. I noted one other brief mid-set interaction with Jeff and the audience when Jeff noted how he has a lot of songs that involve crying and/or tears and how somebody toward the front had told him they had cried during a song or something and how Jeff thought maybe they should have a designated “cryer” on stage. And later, Jeff simply thanked the Chicago crowd and said there wasn’t anywhere else the band would rather call home.

 

And true to form on the second night of a two-night run, those Wilcos sent us home nice and sweaty after 2 hours and 2 minutes with the good old rock block to close things out. Hopefully I didn’t scare the kids on the rail too much during that last bit, but hey, someone’s got to show them that you’re never too old to rock out, right? Especially when the band takes it to that extra gear with the bonus I’m A Wheel cherry on top…

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 (didn’t glimpse a printed setlist, so can’t say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Misunderstood

War On War

Side With The Seeds

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

One Wing

If I Ever Was A Child

Evicted

Random Name Generator

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Cousin

Either Way

You Never Know

Impossible Germany

Whole Love

Meant To Be

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

1 minute ago, Madcap said:

 

Oh for sure.  I'm not expecting stuff like Unlikely Japan or things like that.  Just play Casino Queen!

Ha, I misread your earlier post. I thought you said Can’t Stand It and What Light don’t qualify as deep cuts (and, well, I kind of snobbishly think they’re just mid-deep). Is Casino Queen deep-cut worthy? Umm….🤔

 

(Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to hear it, but really, a deep cut? That’s the beauty of the definition that set, though. It means different things to everybody!)

14 minutes ago, nalafej said:

Rooting for the Being There Rock Song Block tonight...

You need to come up front and will it into existence and stop being such an old man yourself! 

15 minutes ago, Madcap said:

Awesome show, really makes me wish I was going tonight.  I wondered if any deep cuts would pop up in advance of the Friday night Solid Sound set and I’d say Can’t Stand It and What Light qualify!

 

I think people are going to be disappointed if they set their expectations for that "Deep Cuts" set too high. Set expectations low and be pleasantly surprised would be my advice! I certainly hope there will be some truly deep cuts, but I'm kind of starting to think we're going to mostly get what would be called album tracks. Stuff from albums that hasn't been played very often live, rather than crazy non-album tracks or whatnot. Just my suspicion. Is Kicking Television a deep cut? That one seems pretty likely to me. But I'm still holding out hope for Let's Not Get Carried Away!

Oh, what a night…how’s that song go again? Okay, maybe “mid June back in ’24” isn’t quite as catchy as what we’re used to, but as Jeff kept remarking during the show, he couldn’t believe how nice the conditions had turned out for the first night of a two-night run at the new Salt Shed “fairgrounds.” And really, isn’t that everything when it comes to playing an outdoor concert during the summer months? As someone who has endured plenty of those, especially in humid climates, I can tell you that it pretty much is.

 

The Salt Shed is, I guess, Chicago’s newest major venue — a reclaimed salt factory, hence the name, with both indoor and outdoor spaces for shows. The outdoor space, which debuted last year, is basically a long, relatively narrow concrete courtyard adjacent to the old factory building itself with a festival-type stage set up at one end and food and drink vendors at the other. On the building side, there’s a VIP balcony with a bar situated underneath. The outdoor space, anyway, definitely lends itself to being a place to hang out on a nice night and drink and eat —and, oh, maybe listen to some music. Kind of like a Chicago summer street festival, for what it’s worth.

 

Whether or not that’s the ideal setting for a Wilco show, Jeff and Co. certainly made the most of the setting and mixed in a few summery nuggets into their usual setlist. That started almost from the jump with a rocking version of Can’t Stand It as the second song of the night (afterward even Jeff seemed to be a bit taken aback, either by how fun the song was to play or how it came off, or both, saying something to the effect of “that’s about as good as it’s gonna get.”)

 

And a bit later came a mid-set surprise, of sorts, in the form of the back-to-back performances of What Light and Theologians. Before the former, Jeff once again took note of the absolutely perfect weather. “It’s so much better than I thought it was gonna be,” he said. “I was worried. Just a couple of days ago, it looked like it was gonna be…moist.” As a symbol of just how triumphant the mood was, Jeff even embellished the end of Theologians with the rare “big riff” ending that always gives that song an extra boost.

 

One thing I did want to briefly mention before I forget is that it was interesting to see the band continuing to tinker ever so slightly with little musical things that the vast majority of people probably wouldn’t even notice, but when you’ve seen a lot of shows, you definitely do. For instance, on Impossible Germany, I noticed tonight that as Nels was winding down his solo, Jeff actually came over started playing in unison with him for a while before they both headed into the final stretch of the song. It’s something I noticed they started doing in Australia earlier this year and it kind of gives the song a subtly different feel during that stretch. On California Stars, the band has continued to expand this brief instrumental introduction that developed out of filling time waiting for Jeff to get his guitar during one show but that now gives the song a little air of quasi-exotica or something to it. In my opinion, at least.

 

Speaking of California Stars, that oft-played chestnut actually wasn’t even on the printed setlist but got added. The venue apparently had a pretty strict 10 p.m. curfew, and the band got off stage just a couple of minutes before that, with Jeff saying they were going to pull the plug pretty soon and urging the crowd through one final rousing round of “ba ba bas” during Spiders (Kidsmoke) by saying that Milwaukee had done it better a couple of nights earlier. That challenge apparently got enough people going to bring the song — and the show — to satisfactory close.

 

“We’re getting near the end, everybody,” Jeff said toward the end of the main set, drawing the expected moans and groans from the audience. “I just mean in general. Let’s talk about it later.”

 

There weren’t really any other noteworthy visits to Banter Corner, outside of continuing declarations of surprise at the utter pleasantness of the evening’s climes. I suppose that became the theme of the night — things turning out way better than expected. Not even the slightly awkward call out by Jeff before Evicted on a guy who apparently asked a bunch of women at the front row to flash him as he took a photo of them (or something?) could ruin the delightful vibe of the evening.

 

It'll be interesting to see what changes are made to the set tonight despite Jeff’s usual joke after his unscientific poll of how many people were also coming to tomorrow night’s show and how the band wouldn’t have to change the setlist at all. For one, this was the second straight show without a single Being There song played and I have a hard time imagining we won’t at least get a Misunderstood or something tonight. And I still find it kind of weird that Meant To Be, the song off Cousin that the band made a video for and significantly promoted, hasn’t been played by the full band since last October. Just a couple of suggestions…

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 (as mentioned, California Stars wasn’t on the printed setlist, but was added as the penultimate song of the show):

 

Infinite Surprise

Can’t Stand It

Handshake Drugs

At Least That’s What You Said

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Levee

What Light

Theologians

Cousin

Bird Without A Tail/Base of My Skull

Hummingbird

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

I’m Always In Love

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Dawned On Me

The Late Greats

5 hours ago, Beltmann said:

Great to see you last night, Paul. Totally agree about the intensity; afterwards, I described it as a "tune-up" show. Lots of "hits"--and I love hearing those!--with few curveballs. Even the banter was subdued. Fun fact: It was my wife Stacy who went to get the security folks that helped the ill woman. "There's an emergency!," she said, pushing me aside to leap into action before I even understood what was happening!

 

Oh wow, I totally didn't recognize that it was Stacy who was up there trying to get the attention for the sick person! Well, I'm glad it was resolved quickly and everyone was OK. Good to see you as well, if only briefly.

Well, Wilco is officially back on tour. Since we last saw the band Down Under in late March, it has gotten some new merch, a couple of new crew members, announced some new music and, as you might expect leading up to its biennial Solid Sound Festival in just a couple of weeks, generally kept pretty busy in Wilcoworld. In fact, I would even say that the world of Wilco is on the road toward North Adams, Mass., as we speak, except for the fact that the tour routing — not surprisingly — has the band back home in Chicago for a couple of shows after tonight's opener just up the highway in Milwaukee (and a subsequent off day).

 

For anyone looking to tonight's show for possible hints about that aforementioned new music (in the form of the recently announced Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP) or the band's much-anticipated Friday night "Deep Cuts" set at Solid Sound, however, there were none. Rather, Jeff and Co. seemed content to get back into the flow of things in front of a receptive audience. Therefore, as you might have expected, there was almost a dress rehearsal-type vibe to the show. "It's...nice to try and remember these songs again," Jeff said at one point.

 

It was still plenty of fun to see, and Jeff said as much from the opposite perspective — that the band was having a great time — but I would say there was maybe a certain intensity lacking. Not that you would be able to tell, unless you'd seen a lot of shows. Perhaps some of that perception had to do with the band being set up quite far back on the stage as well; I would say, at least 10 feet back from the front. Particularly with the visuals behind them and Jeff not saying much for the first third of the set, it kind of made for a sort of "snowglobe effect" or something at times where the band was this spectacle to be observed at a distance, rather than having an interaction with the audience.

 

Then again, maybe audience interaction wasn't the best thing. A prime example of that happened during Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull after the lyric portion and as the band prepared to get into the guitar jam that really defines that Cruel Country song. Just at that moment, there was some commotion over at stage left and a woman approached the stage with a panicked expression on her face and trying to get someone's attention. It soon became clear that she was seeking help for someone who had a medical emergency of some sort, and relatively quickly two security guards emerged and headed over to that area and apparently the situation was resolved. Meanwhile, the band never stopped playing as Jeff signaled to his bandmates to hold off on the jam and basically keep in a holding pattern until the “all clear” was given.

 

This, I have to say, is in contrast with many younger performers who I’ve seen stop songs multiple times whenever there’s some sort of kerfuffle in the crowd. I’m pretty sure it was Japanese Breakfast who I saw stop songs at least four times at last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival, and I’ve seen it happen with Boygenius and a number of other artists. Anyway.

 

"Is everybody OK now?" Jeff asked the second the song was over. "I was brought up in a world where you were told never to stop playing (when something happened during a song). Playing in bars, when a fight broke out, you were told never to stop playing because the fight would only get worse if there wasn't something to dance to." Then a song later, still thinking about it, Jeff added, "I've also had people come at me seriously just because they wanted to ask me a question. It was very confusing."

 

As I mentioned, Jeff had said virtually nothing for the first third of the set other than briefly checking in with the audience, saying it was nice to be back and giving the proper shoutout to the Bronze Fonz. And if it hadn’t been for the medical incident, he might not have uttered much for most of the main set. But after that incident got him going a bit, he did pay a couple of visits to Banter Corner. Naturally, the “victim” of said banter was one of the frontman’s favorite foils — namely, his drummer.

 

Yes, poor Glenn had to take a couple for the team and he obliged as only he can. The first time came after Heavy Metal Drummer when apparently the intro sample failed — I actually hadn’t noticed — and Jeff jokingly asked Glenn to play it again. Glenn hit the sample pad and out came…just the sound of the drumstick hitting the pad. Glenn got a sheepish look on his face and then gestured to his left at his drum tech Ashwin, which caused Jeff to quip, “Oh sure, blame it on the crew guy.” Then during the encore, before Falling Apart (Right Now), Jeff shared with the audience that the band had run through that song during soundcheck and “Glenn messed up the down beat because he was emailing Zildjian,” the cymbal company. Glenn pointed to his crotales and blamed it on a damaged one, which of course garnered no sympathy from Jeff, who went on to joke that if Zildjian didn’t reply, then it would be “onto Mr. Paiste,” and other percussion companies I don’t even recognize. “That’s a little musician humor for you,” Jeff joked.

 

It’s probably both a blessing and a curse for Milwaukee to be located where it is in terms of Wilco’s touring itinerary. Being just 90 minutes up the road means that the city probably gets visited by the band more than a lot of other places, but it also tends to be at the beginning or the end of a run when everyone is just gearing up again or ready to take a break. Still, I have to give the Riverside Theater crowd credit for being relatively enthusiastic, on its feet from the start, and ready to participate as much as a Wilco Wednesday deserved — even if it was sort of a warmup version of it.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Milwaukee (didn't get a look at a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Infinite Surprise

At Least That's What You Said

Handshake Drugs

Pittsburgh

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

One Wing

Cousin

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Dawned On Me

Heavy Metal Drummer

The Late Greats

A Shot In The Arm

-------------------------------------

Via Chicago

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Apologies for taking so long to get this posted, but I had to catch up on some shuteye and then watch another irritating Cubs loss. Mostly the former, because getting in line at the crack of dawn is apparently what it takes to get in a request at Jeff’s annual benefit shows at the Vic these days. I’m kidding, but barely. Since the number of requests taken were scaled back from 30 to 20 several years ago, the effect has naturally been that the line for those who care to make the requests has only started earlier and earlier.

 

After all, as Jeff usually says — half jokingly — in his disclaimer/introduction at each of these benefit performances about of the group of people who line up early and request the songs that will comprise the bulk of the setlist for the show, “These are not normal people.” I would say that most or all of those folks probably wear that comment as a point of pride, though I would say whether their song choices are actually as out there as they could be lies in Jeff's hands in terms of what he decides to play. In any case, I guess enough "other" people still enjoy these annual shows to keep turning out year after year to see what happens despite Jeff's regular warnings about how "it's not gonna be a good show," and how "it's a slog...it's a long night."

More to come, but for now, here was the complete setlist as played for Night 2 at the Vic:

 

I Am My Mother

Message From Mid-Bar

I Can't Keep From Talking

Country Disappeared

You And I

Spiders (Kidmoke)

Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down

Laminated Cat aka Not For The Season

Guess Again

Even I Can See

Pick Up The Change

Pot Kettle Black

Meant To Be

Magnetized

War On War

ELT
Flowering

new song-KC Rain

Gwendolyn

Hoodoo Voodoo

Just A Kid

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Candyfloss

4 hours ago, theashtraysays said:

...and you didn't even bother to say hello to me??

 

Nor me!

I don't know exactly how many years Jeff has been playing these benefit shows at the Vic now, and I'm sure a more respectable nerd would be able to give you that information off the top of his/her/their head, but it's just shy of 5 a.m., so sue me. Suffice it to say it's been the better part of two decades now — at least since that memorable Kawasaki disease benefit show organized by a friend in 2005 that another friend and I were fondly reminiscing about before tonight's show. Jeff's solo performances in Chicago have understandably evolved since those days, as both he and his audience have gotten grayer, and yet they continue to be a highlight of the concert calendar for many, both locally and for people from around the country.

 

To be even more precise, I'm not sure exactly when Jeff decided to adopt the format of allowing the first 30 people in line to request songs that would comprise the setlist for that night's show. That format itself has been tweaked over the years to be reduced to the first 20 in line getting to make requests with Jeff retaining control over (up to?) 10 songs on the setlist to what eventually happened tonight, which is Jeff playing exactly 20 requests. No more, no less.

 

The 20-song set is actually in keeping with just about all of Jeff's recent solo performances, which remarkably somehow always end up being 19 or 20 songs no matter how many stories he tells or tangents he goes on, but for whatever reason felt a tad short when it came to these benefit shows when I guess some of us had gotten used to some more rambling sets over the years. As he has been doing, Jeff did not take a real encore break (as in, he didn't really go off stage but explained when he would have and that it was more fun to be on stage when people were applauding) and that probably also shortened the duration of the set, which I clocked at 1 hour, 50 minutes. As Jeff joked in his introductory comments, "some of those (30-song) shows are still happening."

 

Speaking of introductory comments, Jeff always prefaces his performances at these shows by trying to temper expectations for the majority of the audience ("Charity is supposed to be painful," Jeff quipped, "I'm not responsible for the song selection at all,") as he explains the format of the show and gives a little what-for to the first 20 people in line who have requested a show made up of "Japanese B-sides and half-written songs" with little regard for the average fan.

 

Guilty as charged, I suppose, although I will say only that the one thing we don't get to know is what the song requests each person made actually were. Each requester has to submit two choices and Jeff chooses from between the two, so it would definitely be interesting to know what everyone's requests were and then we could more accurately evaluate what got played, etc. In a couple of instances, Jeff did indicate what the person's other choice had been — one person  requested the “punk” version of Passenger Side, which Jeff briefly gave a shot but decided he just couldn't pull off with an acoustic guitar and so went with Outtasite (Outta Mind) instead.

 

At any rate, all I'm saying is that there certainly is an art to making a request in this format. In the interest of full disclosure, my requests for this show were Black Eye (intended as a tribute of sorts to Steve Albini's widow Heather Whinna, who I remember always requesting the song at the 24-Hour Letters To Santa events at Second City back in the day) and the new song Feel Free (which Jeff played once at Largo last month). And Jeff chose the latter. I would have been happy with either, but in this case, I'm just glad he played a relatively new song for an audience that otherwise mostly might not otherwise have gotten to hear it.

 

At these shows, each song requester is also invited to submit a question for Jeff, and these often lead to some interesting and/or illuminating and/or comical visits to Banter Corner that are impossible to recap in their entirety here. But a couple of memorable tangents involved Jeff's favorite seafood — "crab legs, I guess" — as well as the stories he has told in various forms at other solo shows this year about his teenage years working in a liquor store.

 

For the audio nerds, a brief word to say that Jeff was plugged in for the first time at these shows in quite a while. That is to say, he reverted back to the more traditional setup of just having a vocal microphone and his guitar being plugged into an amplifier as opposed to his setup in recent years when his guitar actually wasn't plugged in at all and was simply amplified with a second microphone down by his waist. I'm not sure why the change this year, but he certainly needed it in order to make use of the volume pedal on Someday, Some Morning, Sometime, as well as to have the full jangliness of the 12-string on Kamera. A little birdie also told me that Jeff used a different vocal mike for the first time in a long time at this show, though as far as specs, I'm no expert (or even layman) as far as models go.

 

Anyway, as I wrote at the start, these Vic shows have certainly evolved over the years but maybe they've finally reached a point where if nothing else, they are at least within Jeff's comfort zone. He seems very much in control on stage and well, if he doesn't have much control over exactly what songs he's going to be playing on a given night, at least just about every other aspect of the performance seems to finally be within his grasp. No more deer in the headlights, we hope. Let's see what Night 2 brings.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 at the Vic in 2024:

 

new song-Feel Free

Radio King

Story To Tell

Misunderstood

Pittsburgh (w/harmonica)

When The Roses Bloom Again

Someday, Some Morning, Sometime

Kamera

Sunlight Ends

You Are My Face

Jesus Wept

I'm Kind Of In Love With You

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Please Be Patient With Me

Cousin

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

You Are Not Alone

Gun

Just Say Goodbye