bböp
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Posts posted by bböp
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3 hours ago, Yaz Rock said:
One month later, here am I, one of the aforementioned VCer's known to be at the show. Apologies for my Gandolfian-like delay.
Thanks a lot for chiming in, Rob! Better late than never. And great photos, as always. Definitely helped give a sense of the room and the vibe of the show!-
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“We’ll see you next year,” Jeff said, giving one last wave to the capacity crowd at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium as he left the stage with his bandmates for the final time in 2025. Truth be told, I think the Edmonton audience probably would be thrilled if Wilco did return next year since it had surprisingly (amazingly?) been more than 15 years since the band’s last show in town. And of course, Jeff probably will be back this way sometime in 2026 as he now turns his attention to supporting his forthcoming Twilight Override solo release. But I think, in some way, he was maybe speaking to the Wilco fanbase at large.
As with the end of every tour — and the final show of a given year — there is of course some sense of the ending of an era. And with apologies to Taylor Swift, it will be interesting to see what era Wilco enters next on the heels of this “Evening With…” age. Can we actually go back to “regular” length shows with, gasp, an opening act? Will we have to wait until a new Wilco album before Jeff and Co. tour again in earnest (outside of special occasions like the Sky Blue Sky and Solid Sound festivals)? I, for one, will miss this format if it goes away for a while, even if it did become a tad formulaic toward the end of this August stint.
Jeff joked early on tonight about having a sense of déja vu after having played “the exact same room” the previous night in Calgary. “I think they just told us we drove overnight, and they brought in new people,” Jeff said. I wasn’t at that show, but I can imagine what Jeff said to literally be true since that venue was called the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium and it would be so Canadian to have twin venues like this in different cities (Twin Cinema, anyone? Just me? OK.) For anyone who attended that Calgary show — or indeed any other show recently — there probably was a similar sense of déja vu in the sense that Wilco wasn’t about to reinvent the wheel for this final show of the tour.
So with one or two swapouts and/or reorderings, these two sets were pretty much what we had come to expect as far as the songs that were played. There were no curveballs to speak of, but it’s a testament to the professionalism of the band members that everyone looked to be engaged and still having a reasonable amount of fun. And there are still small, subtle things from night to night that guys do to keep it fresh for themselves — and for anyone following along closely — such as tonight’s little feedback outro on the acoustic version of Spiders (Kidsmoke), Jeff singing with a slightly varied cadence on a song here and there or even a bit of goofiness with the recurring Jaws theme intro to the second set.
The encore did offer a chance for a little bit of a good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll ending, and we got some of that in the form of a rousing U.S. Blues to close the show. But time did seem to be working against the band somewhat, even if they were able to go well past the presumed 11 p.m. curfew for that last number. (Of note, the printed setlist I glimpsed had Monday and Outtasite (Outta Mind) in addition to Walken, with U.S. Blues added by hand and with question marks.) “We just want this to be the last song we play for a while, so thanks for listening,” Jeff said of closing with U.S. Blues.
In terms of other visits to Banter Corner, Jeff leaned heavily on the previous night’s gig in Calgary and the rivalry between that city and Edmonton. In addition to the aforementioned jokes about the similarity between the two venues, Jeff also used the classic frontman tactic of appealing to one night’s crowd by (jokingly) denigrating a previous audience. But after doing that with Calgary, Jeff apologized for picking the low-hanging fruit. “That’s too easy, I’m sorry,” Jeff said of calling the Edmonton crowd “way better” than Calgary. “How many of you are from Calgary?” When a woman yelled out she was from Saskatoon, Jeff replied, “Saskatoon? Ok. I didn’t ask that. We’ll go around at the end of the show and (each person will) say where they’re from.”
Another noteworthy bit of banter by Jeff concerned that aspect of a show that is always going to be an issue when the band plays in a reserved seat situation — namely, sitting versus standing. Jeff usually doesn’t get involved in that, but apparently it had worked the previous night in Calgary, so he went back to the well again. This was before Box Full Of Letters, and though he didn’t explicitly ask the crowd to get on its feet, he basically gave it permission and that’s all Canadians need, it seems. “At some point you’re gonna want to stand up,” Jeff said, adding that there weren’t very many slow songs left in the set. “It’s up to you to decide.” So of course, everyone took the suggestion and stood for Box and its setmate, Annihilation.
After that, of course, someone asked, “Can we sit down?” Jeff replied, “You can sit down if you want. You might not be able to see, but I’m not gonna tell you what to do.” Then, realizing that one of those slower songs (Either Way) was coming next, Jeff relented, “Ah, go ahead and sit down. I’m gonna do this (strum the opening chords) until you sit down.” After Either Way, Jeff added, “I just realized I may have been the first rock band frontman to tell an audience to sit down. I’m glad you disobeyed. Not like those people in Calgary. You won’t tell (Edmontonians) what to do.”
I suppose the same could be said of Jeff and his bandmates, who took some inspiration from Bob Dylan at the start of this August run and the way he continues to present his music the way he wants to present it. Of course Jeff couldn’t end a tour without thanking the Wilcrew for its support, if not exactly by name. “It’s the last Wilco show of the year,” Jeff said. “We’ve played a lot this year — from South America to the southern U.S. — and we would like to thank all the people who travel with us and make this possible who don’t get the applause. We would suck without them. We’re gonna learn their names next year.” And what would a Wilco show be without a little back and forth between Jeff and Glenn? “Glenn won’t start (the next song) until I apologize to all the people in our crew whose names he thinks I don’t know,” Jeff shared. “I know all of their names.” Does he? I guess we’ll never know for sure…
Here was the complete setlist, as played (as mentioned, the printed setlist for Set 2 had Monday and Outtasite (Outta Mind) in the encore but neither were played):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
Company In My Back
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Via Chicago
California Stars
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
The Late Greats
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Hate It Here
Jesus, etc.
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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Walken
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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Sadly couldn't make this one, as I had a prior commitment with another Canadian — Uncle Neil — back in Chicago. Heard from a couple sources that it was a bit of an odd gig, though, in the sense that it was theoretically part of the "August Evening With..." tour and thus people thought that the usual two-set, 30-something-song performance was forthcoming. But instead it simply turned into a "standard" set — and kind of a short one at that — with a brief encore.
I guess more than a few attendees were miffed, including our resident Kentuckian. Hopefully he'll chime in with a few more details about the event as a whole, which was I believe was Wilco's first Vancouver appearance in nearly three years. It almost seemed to be like an indoor fair/festival of sorts with a main stage and a couple of smaller ones, in addition to other spectacles. Wilco's show was part of a series of headlining summer night concerts over two weeks at the venue — hence the creatively named series, "Summer Night Concerts" — that also includes/included Counting Crows, Flo Rida, Foreigner and Megan Trainor, among others. I also read that the venue in which Wilco played was reserved seating and most of the crowd sat for the bulk of Wilco's set until finally getting up for the last few songs. Please correct me if I'm wrong/fill in details if you can.
Here was the setlist, as played, according to the Wilcoworld wonks (I'm using educated guesses in terms of arrangements and such):
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Via Chicago
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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California Stars
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
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4 hours ago, 50footqueenie said:
I CANNOT BELIEVE NO-ONE ASKED IF HE DIDN'T HAVE A MUZZLE FOR THAT BEE FFS!
SOMEONE DID MENTION IT, NOT IN THAT WAY EXACTLY BUT STILL. HE GOT THE HUMOUR I THINK, BUT STILL WAS MOST LIKELY NOT IN THE JOKIEST OF MOODS. FFS!
18 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:How long was the queue for Pat at the petting corner?
Ta
Pat and the Penguins. Good doo-wop group, or so I hear.
(Sea)-Ta(c) Airport.
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Birthdays…who needs ‘em? Amirite? I write this as someone whose own birthday is rapidly approaching, but even if Jeff hadn’t already expressed his indifference toward his birthday on his most recent Substack post, I think he would probably be inclined to agree after he spent his 58th working with Wilco on the second night of a two-night stand at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.
After taking the stage to a front row of people wearing party hats, blowing noisemakers and holding up letters spelling out “Happy Birthday, Jeff” — I’m not even going to get into the clueless local television news personality who appeared on stage before that and apparently had no clue who the birthday-celebrating “Jeff” was — Jeff sheepishly thanked the audience and said all of the pomp and circumstance was “very sweet” before leading his bandmates into the, uh, not-very-celebratory Story To Tell. Two songs later, after the acoustic version of Art Of Almost, Jeff ran into his first speedbump of the night in the form of an awkward moment with a heckler. Near the front at stage left, a woman very audibly said, “That was terrible.” Trying to confirm that he had heard the comment correctly, Jeff replied, “That was terrible? OK, uh, that’s not the kind of encouragement we want.” That comment prompted cheering from other parts of the audience, which gave Jeff the confidence to reply to the woman, with a slight smirk, “It seems like people disagree with you.”
It wouldn’t be the last indignity Jeff would have to endure during his birthday show, but he attempted to head off any potential grumbling about repeated songs from the previous night by telling the crowd that he knew many people had also attended Night 1 but that these were the songs he and his bandmates were enjoying playing right now and joked that “you’re gonna enjoy them again.” But he did add that there would also be enough different numbers from the previous night’s show “to make everybody happy and not just the freaks.”
Freak? Moi? Well, I can certainly say that I, for one, was delighted by the next song choice, Someday Soon, which Jeff introduced by saying, “We haven’t played this in a while. Let’s see how this goes…” For the record, it had only been a few years since the last performance of Someday Soon — at the last Sky Blue Sky Festival in 2023 — but it had apparently been long enough that its surprise coda even amusingly tripped up some of the Wilcrew, who were already starting to bring out guitars for the next song. “We fooled our own techs,” Jeff quipped. “It’s called a fake ending, Andy.”
Just one song later we got a real rarity in the form of Pick Up The Change. Fortunately I had already done a quick search to find out just how long it had been since the band played one of my favorite A.M. cuts because afterward Jeff remarked that it had been a while for that one, too, and added that your humble correspondent could probably tell you exactly how long. “Nine years,” I immediately replied, and it had indeed been just shy of that. Amazingly, the full band hadn’t performed the song since a three-night run at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles in September 2016. If Jeff was surprised by that factoid, however, he didn’t show it, replying, “Nine years? It’s been one day since we played this one,” before immediately going into the acoustic version of Spiders (Kidsmoke).
Only Jeff can say if it took his birthday, consecutive shows in the same city or just pure whimsy to shake up the setlist with a couple of rarities (though, interestingly, we didn’t get Bull Black Nova, which had been soundchecked and on the printed setlist for Night 1 but ultimately wasn’t played either night). Someday Soon and Pick Up The Change would be the biggest surprises of the night, but true to Jeff’s word, we also got a number of other changes. By my count, there were 11 songs in all played on Night 2 that weren’t on Night 1 — so basically one-third of the “Evening With…” show’s 33 or 34 songs got swapped out.
Even if it hadn’t been Jeff’s birthday, though, it would have been a memorable night — and not always in a good way. The first weird moment came in Set 1 when all of a sudden, after Spiders, a drumstick mysteriously went flying over the front of the stage and into the pit between the stage and the front row. Apparently Glenn lost control while reaching for it out of his stickbag, as he attempted to explain to some of his bandmates. Meanwhile, the wayward stick landed at the feet of a lady right in front of Jeff, who proceeded to get into a conversation with her after he saw her pick up the stick with her foot. Apparently the drumstick was a “very special” one the band couldn’t just let the lady have, so drum tech Ashwin came down into the pit to retrieve it and promised her he would bring down some sticks that she could have a little later (which he did). I could get into more of the back and forth between her and Jeff, but basically it involved him calling her ma’am, which she bristled at — this was kind of a sassy front row — but it eventually ended on a joke about Jeff’s birthday as just about everything seemed to tonight.
Even worse for Jeff was not one, but two, separate insect issues during the show. The first came out midway through Set 2 when Jeff shared before Sunken Treasure why he had apparently been touching his nose more often than usual during the show. “I just want to point out that I didn’t have birthday cocaine,” he joked. “That was a long time ago, and it’s not good for me. No, it’s because a small bug has taken up residence (in my nose). There’s a bug living in my left nostril.” One song later, after Either Way, things got even worse when Jeff apparently got stung by a bee on the back of his neck. He suddenly grabbed at his collar and then bent over briefly as his guitar tech came out to inspect the sting, which a friend of mine who works at the zoo said was probably a yellowjacket. “Happy birthday to me,” an exasperated Jeff said. “Guess we’re gonna find out if I’m allergic.” After Nels’ usual brilliance on Impossible Germany, Jeff qupped, in a bit of gallows humor, “I could play like that if I wasn’t getting stung by bees.” Then he added, before Jesus, etc., “Sing along, please. Such a great frontman.”
Poor guy. Jeff soldiered on for the rest of the show, which was kind of a blur if I'm being honest. The band blitzed through A Shot In The Arm to close out Set 2, which might have been the granting of a request by someone in the front row who had been holding up a sign for that song. But it was hardly Jeff’s best performance of it as he flubbed lyrics a couple times — to be fair, the band hadn’t played it at all on this August tour — and Jeff mouthed an apology to the requester for the errors as he walked off stage.
The band did return for a quick encore, even with the zoo’s tight 9 p.m. curfew looming, and even went back to U.S. Blues as the show closer for the second night in a row. By that point, things had kind of gotten a bit loose, shall we say, as Glenn and Pat couldn’t get on the same page to start the song and Jeff had to intercede to get them back together. Despite all of the shenanigans, Jeff still pronounced these Seattle shows as “two of my favorite shows of all-time” and thanked what he called a sweet crowd for coming out for them. “Happy birthday, everybody,” Jeff declared as he walked off stage and disappeared into the night (or more likely, into the comfort of the tour bus parked just off stage for a little birthday bee balm).
Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 (didn't see a printed setlist(s), so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
Company In My Back
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Someday Soon
Evicted
Pick Up The Change
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
It's Just That Simple
California Stars
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Whole Love
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Random Name Generator
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Heavy Metal Drummer
A Shot In The Arm
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Monday>
Outtasite (Outta Mind)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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I don’t know how well this will work, but here’s a shot of Jeff holding the aforementioned bread…
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Imagine, if you will, a movie poster from a 1950s sci-fi B-movie called “The Sourdough That Took Over Seattle” or something like that with a sourdough round perhaps taking the place of a flying saucer and descending upon, say, Woodland Park Zoo. I can see it, and I think it could be a hit! (Or maybe I’ve just gone to too many shows now and I’m starting to go a little crazy. Who can say?)
Anyway, I bring up this wacky image because on the first night of two sold-out shows by Jeff and his bandmates at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, a sourdough round stamped with “Wilco” did indeed threaten to take over the show after it made its way to the stage during the first set. Before the night was over, that hunk of bread would be awarded to a band member, used as a percussion instrument on more than one occasion and generally be brandished about as a talisman of sorts. Shout out to the person with too much time on their hands to create such a thing because it added a certain amount of fun to the show that kneaded to be had (wink, wink…don’t @ me because Jeff made an even cornier joke that I didn’t even manage to jot down because I was groaning so much. Does anyone remember what it was?)
On a lovely night — though apparently the Seattle folks I knew at the show thought it was really hot, haha — Wilco took the stage at 5:59 p.m., a minute early, for what I believe was its first appearance in the long-running ZooTunes concert series that raises money for the Woodland Park Zoo's conservation and education programs. Time was of the essence because the ZooTunes shows are known to have a very tight curfew and must end shortly before 9 p.m., so it was going to be a tight squeeze to fit in a full “Evening With…” program.
Despite that potential time crunch, Jeff and Co. decided to throw in a setlist curveball early on with One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend) coming after the standard opening two-fer on this tour of Story To Tell and Handshake Drugs. It was just the second full-band performance of the quiet epic this year and mesmerized the audience, particularly when Glenn brought out some of his percussion accoutrements — featuring the “chicken paddle,” with a bunch of small wooden(?) chickens leaning forward to collectively clack their beaks — near the end. Other noteworthy moments in the first set included Nels adding a sort of goofy ending to Spiders (Kidsmoke) by using his KAOS pad, Jeff and Nels switching solos (that is, Jeff taking the first one and Nels the last one) on California Stars and Jeff changing a “via Chicago” to “via Seattle” near the end of that song, which he almost never does.
Jeff certainly didn’t have any reticence about visiting Banter Corner during the first set, first taking note of the picturesque surroundings for the show — which takes place in a lawn with plenty of trees around it — and then even riffing on Seattle a bit. “This is pretty beautiful,” Jeff said. “It’s kind of a ridiculous amount of beauty. Is everybody OK? Is grunge still happening? (Did I ask) that last time? It looks like it’s still happening. It’ll never die.” Then of course there came the sourdough chatter, which started when Jeff spotted someone holding it up for him to see. “Is that a piece of bread with our name on it?” Jeff asked, then gave permission for it to be thrown on stage. “You can toss it; it’s bread,” Jeff said, then questioned whether it was moldy and also jokingly asking where everyone else’s gift was. When some folks in the audience urged him to take a bite, Jeff demurred and asked what might be in it. Someone suggested “psychedelics,” and Jeff replied, “Psychedelics? No, thank you. I’d be under the drum riser — and there is no drum riser.”
As I mentioned at the top, that would hardly be the last time the sourdough became part of the show. In Set 2, after an especially cool Impossible Germany solo (and I don’t say that lightly), Jeff bestowed the round to Nels as he sat on his stool to get set for the ensuing Jesus, etc. “He won the bread,” Jeff declared about Nels, who then held it proudly aloft for a few seconds. Then Glenn had to get into the act, or maybe Jeff goaded him into it by telling the audience that “Glenn wants to know what it sounds like.” Thus Glenn got his hands on the sourdough and began to test out its viability as a percussion implement, holding it up to one of the microphones overhanging his drum kit and tapping on it a few times. And during the encore, at the climax of I Got You (At The Century), John got into the act as well by taking the bread and holding it up for Glenn to hit a few times as he would one of his cowbells. More sourdough, anyone?
As for Jeff, he paid a couple more visits to Banter Corner during the second set. One came when a few folks decided to take advantage of a brief pause between songs to wish him a happy (early) birthday. Jeff, of course, played it down. “Happy birthday eve to all who celebrate,” he said. “I feel sorry for all the kids who were born on my birthday eve.” A bit earlier, he took a brief survey of the crowd to ask how many people were also coming to the following night’s show. Apparently more than a few hands were raised, causing Jeff to reply, half-jokingly, “Oh crap, we gotta learn a bunch of different songs.”
As it turned out, the band did have what would have been another real curveball on the printed setlist for Set 2 in Bull Black Nova but it was unfortunately scratched, perhaps for time reasons. It would have been the first time that song had been played live since April 2023 — I already sense Vince’s (theashtraysays) Nova antenna going up — so hopefully we’ll get it on Night 2.
You can’t accuse Wilco of not playing as long a show as it possibly could on Night 1, though, despite the time crunch caused by the strict curfew (not to mention playing a number of its longest songs). Once the clock hit 8:50 p.m. at the end of I Got You, some of us were thinking that surely had to be it. But instead the Wilcrew brought out one more round of guitars and Jeff and Co. blistered through their cover of U.S. Blues to send the ZooTunes crowd home on a fun note — and one on which no bread was ultimately harmed.
Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 (didn't get a look at a printed setlist for Set 1, but as previously mentioned, Bull Black Nova was on the printed list for Set 2 and ultimately wasn't played):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Via Chicago
California Stars
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
The Late Greats
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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51 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:
(Mon)ta(na)
Tony or Joe?
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Have we reached that point in a given tour when it’s not so much about what songs Jeff and his bandmates play as much as how they play them? It’s just one schlub’s opinion, of course, but I kind of think we have — and for one night anyway, I’m here for it. It’s liberating, at least once in a while, to just enjoy the actual performance itself and be present for each moment and not worry so much about repertoire or anything else.
So it was at the scenic KettleHouse Amphitheater, a 4,000-capacity outdoor venue on the banks of the Blackfoot River east of Missoula. Like many amphitheaters of its ilk, the KettleHouse has a standing-room pit area, a small section of reserved seating and then a general-admission lawn behind that. What I didn’t realize, especially after having such low stages the previous two shows, was that the stage at the KettleHouse is quite high (nearly six feet), so being at the rail, you definitely risked missing out on seeing some things depending on your angle. At least the weather was quite pleasant.
For some reason, I thought Wilco had played at the KettleHouse more recently than its only other visit in 2021 when it co-headlined with Sleater-Kinney. Sadly, I missed that one. But I did make it to Jeff and Co.’s intimate show at the ELM in Bozeman a little over a year later, in September 2022, so maybe that’s what I was thinking of. For a state that many bands probably don’t get to all that often, Wilco has actually played in Montana a decent amount over the years.
It took Jeff and Co. nearly seven minutes past their announced set time to take the stage tonight, which was a little out of character for a band that’s usually very prompt. But before long they were into their usual rhythm, featuring a number of the rearranged “acoustic” versions of classic songs, such as Art Of Almost, Spiders (Kidsmoke) and I’m Always In Love, that they have been playing during these “Evening With…” shows. Jeff seemed to be in a pretty good mood from the start, doing a little jig during Glenn’s rolling drum outro to Forget The Flowers, introducing the two-set format with some of his usual banter and taking his relatively brief, but intense, acoustic solo during the first breakdown in Spiders that I think is fairly new. Also of note in Set 1, Jeff actually took a solo toward the end of California Stars right before the “dream a dream of you” coda. I don’t remember that ever happening before.
What Jeff didn’t do too much of during Set 1 was visit Banter Corner in any significant fashion, but the one time he did stop was pretty amusing. After thanking the crowd for singing along during I’m Always In Love, Jeff spotted someone wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates hat. “You know I used to pitch for them,” Jeff deadpanned, referring to his throwing out of the ceremonial first pitch at one of their games earlier this month. “I’m not the one who pitched a no-hitter on acid, though. Yeah, (I’m not) Dock Ellis.”
In Set 2, Jeff found a new foil for banter in the form of a couple of women right in front of him who apparently decided to have their dinner during Side With The Seeds and might have caused him to stumble a bit over some lyrics. “Sorry I lost my place in that song,” Jeff said afterward, “but I’ve never seen anyone chow down right in front of me like that. You must have been fucking hungry. You should’ve eaten earlier…you know, in preparation for the show. I’m not blaming you for my performance, though. That’s on me.” Then, introducing the ensuing Box Full Of Letters, Jeff quipped, “This song pairs well with wings.” (A song later, Jeff of course had to apologize for calling out the women. He said he hoped he hadn’t embarrassed them too much — to which they replied that it had been “worth it” — and that he would “keep taking your temperature” as the show went on.)
From there, the show kind of just got progressively goofier as it barreled toward its inevitable conclusion. This, in particular, is what I was probably alluding to earlier when I suggested that it didn’t matter so much what was played as how it was played. From another brief lyric hiccup in Impossible Germany to Jeff losing himself at the start of I’m The Man Who Loves You when he went a little overboard on the introductory riffs only to miss the actual start of the song — the look on Jeff’s face at that moment was pretty priceless — things just kind of got pleasantly loose, for lack of a better word.
By the encore, which Jeff and his bandmates finished up with the classic two-fer of I Got You (At The End Of The Century) and Outtasite (Outta Mind), they all just seemed to be in a full-blown fun mood. Pat was hamming it up throughout that last stretch, we got a great John split-leg jump during Outtasite and Nels was hoisting his guitar over his head for seemingly forever as if he didn’t want the night to end.
All in all, it turned into a joyful evening when everyone just let loose a little bit. And that’s kind of what you need at this point in what has been a fairly lengthy run of shows. As Jeff said, half-jokingly, near the end of the night. “I don’t know if we’ve ever played a better show here. That’s on you.”
Here was the complete setlist, as played (didn't get a look at a printed setlist(s), so can't say for sure if there were any changes/omissions):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
California Stars
Via Chicago
Set 2
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
----------------------------------------------
The Late Greats
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)>
Outtasite (Outta Mind)
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3
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From an amphitheater near a beach on Long Island to the top of a mountain in Wyoming to a zoo in Seattle, I guess there’s just about no type of place that Wilco isn’t covering on this coast-to-coast “An August Evening With…” tour. And for tonight’s stop, we bring you to a park in the middle of a small city in Utah that the band has never played before in more than 30 years of touring.
To be fair, Ogden is only about a 45-minute drive north of Salt Lake City, where Jeff and his bandmates have played many times over the years and I’m sure that plenty of folks at tonight’s show had probably seen Wilco before. But in the grand scheme of things, the chance to catch a two-set performance by Wilco on a sunny, summer evening clearly was enough of a draw to get people to come out in spite of temperatures that — at least on my car’s dashboard — read as high as 102 degrees a couple of hours before showtime. Hey, as they say, it’s a dry heat!
The Ogden Amphitheater is a fairly intimate venue right in downtown Ogden with a wide lawn encircling the stage area. It was wide enough that Jeff even looked off to his far left and right at points during the show and waved to people on the extreme ends and wondered if their views were obstructed at all. Also of note, the VIP section covered the entire pit area across the front of the stage, with some standing room in front of a small section of seats, so that to be right up front and center, you had to have a VIP ticket. The good news was that once again the stage was quite low, so that those in the front had a particularly good view of the band, even if Jeff and Co. were set a bit further back than the previous night’s show.
I don’t want to put the mountaintop show in Jackson and this show in Ogden into too much of a vacuum comparison-wise just because they are the two most recent shows I’ve been able to attend. But it is interesting to note some of the differences between them. For instance, from a production standpoint, the Jackson show had just the bare minimum of a lighting rig — in fact, we heard that nearly all of the band’s equipment and gear had to be transported up the mountain via the same gondola that ferried the audience — while in Ogden the Wilcrew was able to go back to its regular lighting setup with standing towers of lights of different circumferences. In addition, the band members changed clothes between sets in Jackson (with Jeff coming back out for Set 2 in a somewhat garishly colored plaid shirt that I don’t recall him wearing on stage before), while they didn’t change at all in Ogden. But in Ogden, we did get the amusing bit where the band returned for the second set to the unmistakable tones of John Williams’ classic theme from Jaws.
Who can say why any of this stuff happens or doesn’t happen from night to night? I guess the band and the Wilcrew have to keep things fresh for themselves during a pretty grueling month on the road. Similarly, why does a relatively deep cut like Country Disappeared suddenly come out when the band has been sticking to a fairly consistent setlist for this tour (the order might get shifted around a bit, but the songs played have been mostly the same)? Yet it was a delight to hear the melancholic vibes of that tune, which was certainly a (the?) highlight of this Ogden show, even if only yours truly realized it in the moment.
“We haven’t played that one in a while,” Jeff said of Country Disappeared, which made its 2025 debut and was performed for the first time by the full band since one of the St. Paul “Winterlude On The Road” shows last December. “It’s been fun to get to do this (two-set format), to get to stretch out and listen to each other more than we usually get to. Both sets are different songs, just so you know. No extra charge.”
Jeff had some other pretty funny visits to Banter Corner during this show, none more so than the zinger he came up with when someone in the crowd yelled out late in the first set, “Marry me, Wilco!” Jeff heard it, and fired back, “Did you say marry you? This might be the only state where that’s possible. We’re all married, thank you.” A couple of songs into Set 2, Jeff also had an amusing bit about that blazing orb in the sky finally relenting a bit. “We’re back,” Jeff said. “Everyone still having a good time? The sun went down like we talked about. That's one of my favorite things about the sun is it goes away.” That comment came on the heels of Jeff’s first audience check-in during the first set. “Ogden! It’s so good to be here,” Jeff exclaimed. “Have we ever been here? No? That’s what I thought. I don’t usually know where I’ve been, but I knew that.”
I must also mention, by way of discussing the show in Jackson the previous night, that it seemed like Jeff still had the mass exodus at the end of that show on his mind. Right before the band left the stage for the set break, he said, “Hopefully you’ll all be here when we get back.” Normally I wouldn’t ascribe that comment to anything out of the ordinary, but Jeff ‘s last bit of banter for the night clearly spelled out what he was thinking. “Last night we played on a mountain and everybody left early to go catch a gon-DOE-la,” Jeff said during the encore, pronouncing the last word in a goofy way. “This is much nicer to have everybody still around. We always love coming here (to Utah), even though we’ve never actually been here (to Ogden).”
In fairness, I will say that those who stayed for the duration in Jackson seemed to be way more enthusiastic than much of the crowd in Ogden. Perhaps that’s what you get when you put the VIP section across the entire front of the stage. There was a VIP section in Jackson as well — and it was actually pretty massive — but it was mostly off to the side with only a tiny part adjacent to the front of the stage. A small distinction, to be sure, but it definitely seemed to make a difference in terms of the crowd energy. Because of the slight curvature of the rail in Ogden, I was able to look down the line at the front row during I Got You (At The End Of The Century), for example, and hardly anyone seemed very into it. That could just be my misperception, or the fact that different people enjoy shows in different ways, but I just couldn’t help thinking that if I was up there playing one of my rocking-est songs and people were just kind standing there staring back at me without much outward enthusiasm, it would kind of bum me out.
Anyway, here was the complete setlist as played in Ogden (didn't get to carefully peruse the printed setlist(s), so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Country Disappeared
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Via Chicago
California Stars
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
The Late Greats
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Hate It Here
Jesus, etc.
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
---------------------------------------------
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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3
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37 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:
You slipped 'teton' past the censors.
Ta(tas)
I knew I shouldn’t have cut out that bit about the teensy (A cup?) teeter-totter…
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If a rock band plays a show on top of a mountain and hardly anyone stays until the end to see it, does it even count? To paraphrase that old philosophical conundrum, that question must have entered Jeff’s mind during the later stages of Wilco’s show atop Snow King Mountain tonight when he looked out at what remained of the audience and realized that a significant portion of it had split to catch the gondola back to the base.
Let’s rewind a bit to set the scene. As part of a summer series of concerts atop the nearly 8,000-foot peak, Wilco’s latest stop on its “An August Evening With…” tour featured the unique experience of having to board a gondola that ascends more than 1,500 feet in about five minutes to a simple amphitheater that boasts stunning views of the surrounding Teton mountain range and the town of Jackson below. The only problem with that aspect of the show is that with probably at least 1,000 people, maybe more, in attendance, the gondola gets quite backed up at the end of the night and it can take a while to get on one at the busiest times. (Apparently you can also hike down the mountain, but that also takes a decent amount of time and you are warned not to do it unless you know the route, have appropriate footwear, haven’t had too much to drink, etc.)
So given all that, not to mention the fact that it was a weeknight (Tuesday) and a decent part of the crowd was probably made up of people who weren’t even necessarily big Wilco fans but simply locals who enjoy quality live music in general, it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that some would try and beat the traffic, as it were. But I think even Jeff was caught a little off guard by just how many early departures there were. It’s hard for me to assess from where I was standing, but it was clearly enough for Jeff to make a comment on it before the show-closing cover of U.S. Blues.
“Can we get the lights on one more time?” Jeff asked, surveying the scene and speaking to the relatively small but enthusiastic group of diehards gathered at the front of the stage. “Wow, this is the most people that’s ever left our show. You guys are troupers. Does the gondola stop (running) at a certain time?”
That’s the dichotomy of a show in a tertiary market, I suppose. You get a wide range of attendees, from people super eager to see a band that doesn’t stop through very often to casual fans who are mostly interested in a social outing. This was only Wilco’s second-ever full-band appearance in Wyoming following a headlining appearance — with Son Volt(!), among others — at the inaugural Jackson Hole Music Festival in 2008, though Jeff played a somewhat testy solo show in Jackson just last fall. Almost certainly the two things that will be remembered about this Snow King Mountain show will be the early-departing crowd and the spectacular setting.
It was the latter that formed the basis of much of Jeff’s noteworthy visits to Banter Corner during the show. Early on, he asked rhetorically, “What are we doing here?” and added, “This is pretty great.” He also remarked on how the conditions had gotten “real nice real fast,” once the sun started going down (and, indeed, you could see by the temperature on the clock that’s always at stage right that it was a pleasant 79 degrees midway through the first set and had dropped to 69 by early in the second). Jeff felt compelled to comment on the band getting a ride in a golf cart about 100 feet downhill from a building that apparently served as the green room to the stage — in full view of anyone who was paying attention. “If anybody saw us come down from up there on a golf cart, I just want to say we could’ve walked,” Jeff said. “We didn’t wanna disillusion anyone any more than what’s necessary.”
Another funny line came a few songs after Spiders (Kidsmoke) when Jeff poked a bit of fun at himself for his little guitar freakout during the first breakdown of the song. I don’t really remember him taking a solo at that point in the acoustic arrangement, and certainly not one as visceral as he did tonight (which I caught Nels subtly admiring), but as Jeff quipped, “I just wanna say something about my solo in Spiders: It makes a lot more sense at sea level.” A bit earlier, Jeff also responded to some apparent clatter from behind him and turned around and asked Glenn if he was OK. That somehow turned into Jeff jokingly telling the audience that the drummer “just threw a drumstick off the mountain.”
From a setlist perspective, we didn’t get the obvious Remember The Mountain Bed but Jeff did make a subtle gesture at the “if I had a mountain…” lyric in Sunken Treasure (during which he also added the line “I’m not ashamed of rock ‘n’ roll.”) Other highlights included Muzzle Of Bees, which apparently was a request, as well as a very plaintive version of the acoustic arrangement of I’m Always In Love.
Generally speaking, the band has been sticking to a pretty static setlist as this August run has gone on (in terms of the songs played, although, of course, there are usually one or two curveballs per show whether it’s a song that isn’t in the standard rotation, such as Muzzle, or the placement of a song, such as I’m The Man Who Loves You kicking off the second set). Jeff usually explains the two-set format at some point relatively early on and that led to one other interesting suggestion that I hadn’t heard Jeff say before. “We’re gonna do a completely different set of songs in the second set, no extra charge,” he said. “Or we’ll write a completely new song (during the 20-minute intermission) and do that. No, we can’t do that. I thought it would be cool…but we can’t do it.”
Maybe that would have gotten a few more people to stick around. Probably not, but at any rate it was still quite an enjoyable evening. Part of that was the setting, obviously, and also the stage setup, which featured a fan-friendly low stage with the band set up relatively close to the audience, which is always nice. It just felt pretty intimate despite being an outdoor amphitheater with a good-sized lawn. There wasn’t even a rail up front, as we’re accustomed to, but just a wooden fence and some subwoofers separating the stage from the front row. Nice to see some familiar faces who made the trip out west; shout out to the “state collectors.” Personally, I’m glad I stayed all the way until the end — even if it meant waiting an extra 20 or 30 minutes for that return gondola ride.
Here was the complete setlist, as played (in terms of changes/omissions from the printed setlist, I think there was only one: Quiet Amplifier was on the printed list in Set 2, but was scratched out in favor of Whole Love):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Muzzle Of Bees
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Falling Apart (Right Now)
California Stars
Via Chicago
It's Just That Simple
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Set 2
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Whole Love
The Late Greats
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
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Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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3
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Now this was a show I would have loved to have made it to because I'm sure Vail is lovely in the summer and I used to go there in the winter with my family many moons ago. Anyway, when it comes to Wilco shows in Vail, I always think of the previous one in December 2012 (as part of the Vail Snow Daze festival) when the temperature was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind chill was maybe -10. I honestly don't know how anyone who had to play a stringed instrument made music come out of one that night. Who had the brilliant idea to play a nighttime outdoor show in the mountains in December?
By contrast, I trust that this "August Evening With..." performance took place under much more pleasant conditions. I haven't been to a show at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail Village myself, but I'm pretty sure it is a fairly cozy outdoor venue with reserved (and covered) pavilion seating and a general admission lawn section sloping up and around it.
As for the setlist, here was what was played according to the folks manning Wilcoworld (again, the set breaks were not delineated so I'm using setlist.fm for that and my own educated guesses about arrangements and such):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Via Chicago
It's Just That Simple
You And I
Falling Apart (Right Now)
California Stars
Set 2
The Late Greats
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
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1
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More housekeeping, since I wasn't able to make it to Mission Ballroom this time around. It's a fairly large indoor venue of the sort that you'll find in many cities these days with a wide general admission floor and reserved seating (I think) in the mezzanine level. And being a Saturday night, I'm sure there was quite a lively crowd in attendance...hopefully someone will chime in with some more thoughts/observations/etc.
For now, here was complete setlist as played, according to the Wilcoworld minders (having seen photos of the printed setlists on social media, I feel fairly confident in reporting where the set break occurred and can use educated guesses about arrangements and such; incidentally, it appears that Heavy Metal Drummer and I'm The Man Who Loves You were added to the planned end of Set 2, having been written in by hand before the encore):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Quiet Amplifier
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Via Chicago
California Stars
Set 2
The Late Greats
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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2
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Couldn't make it to KC this time, which is unfortunate for my barbecue-loving stomach as well as my penchant for record shopping whilst on tour. But I feel like Wilco has pretty much found a home in the city with this gig at the Midland being its fourth show there since 2017 (and fifth in KC overall since then, if you count a short performance backstage at Crossroads that was live streamed after the band's co-headlining performance with Sleater-Kinney there in 2021 got wiped out due to inclement weather).
Anyway, if anyone who attended this outing at the Midland is so inclined to post about it, please let us know how it went...
Here was the complete setlist, as played, thanks to the folks at Wilcoworld (as usual, they don't delineate where the set break was so I'm using setlist.fm and some educated guesses about arrangements and such to fill in those details):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Company In My Back
Evicted
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Forget The Flowers
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Via Chicago
It's Just That Simple
California Stars
Hummingbird
War On War
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
You Are My Face
The Late Greats
Theologians
Random Name Generator
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
---------------------------------------------
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)>
Outtasite (Outta Mind)
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Just catching up on some housekeeping duties here, since I had to sit this one out. I don't expect anyone on here to have attended this show in an extremely tertiary market, but if anyone did and feels like chiming in, please do. I mainly am wondering if Jeff had anything to say about the band's last appearance (I'm pretty sure) in Springfield.
When I saw the southwestern Missouri city on the list of tour stops for this "August Evening With..." run, my first thought was that it only took about 20 years for the band to get back there after one of the most infamous incidents in Wilco concert history happened at the Shrine Mosque back in October 2006. I wasn't at that show either, but obviously when Jeff takes a swing at a stage crasher and it makes national news, that's a pretty noteworthy gig. Now Jeff is in a much different place than he was in 2006, and I have no idea if the Gillioz Theatre has anything in common with the Shrine Mosque, but I can't imagine that wild night from nearly two decades ago didn't at least cross Jeff's mind when he was on stage tonight...
Here was the complete setlist, as played, according to the Wilcoworld authorities (as usual, they don't delineate where the set breaks occurred, so I'm relying on setlist.fm and some educated guesses about arrangements and such to fill in those details):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
You And I
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Via Chicago
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
Quiet Amplifier
It's Just That Simple
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Set 2
The Late Greats
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Whole Love
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
---------------------------------------------
California Stars
Hate It Here
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
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Well, sadly, I had to sit this one out, so I can't offer any firsthand reportage. But I do know that at least one VCer was there who can, so hopefully that person will chime in at some point and give us some more details. I have actually been to the (very creatively named) Factory before, though, so I know that it's a relatively spacious indoor venue outside of St. Louis with a wide, open floor.
Here was the complete setlist, as played, according to the good folks over at Wilcoworld (as usual, their system seems unable to delineate where the set break happens but I'm going to rely on setlist.fm as well as some educated guesses about arrangements and such):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
Meant To Be
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Via Chicago
Quiet Amplifier
Either Way
It's Just That Simple
California Stars
Set 2
The Late Greats
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Jesus, etc.
Impossible Germany
Hate It Here
Walken
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
---------------------------------------------
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
Casino Queen
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1
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1
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5 hours ago, nalafej said:
As in, My 100th Wilco show. Spanning nearly 30 years (#1 at Pine Knob on 8/20/95).
You really can't ask for a better summertime outdoor show in Chicago or anywhere for that matter. The band brought their road tested formula and tweaked it ever so slightly for the hometown crowd. It was a hit. Mother nature delivered a warm dry evening with a nice breeze from time to time. It was a hit.
US Blues was a highlight as were all the Pat spotlights - Falling Apart, Box, background vocals. Just That Simple into Quiet Amplifier worked really well. I think they lost the crowd with the start of the former, but by songs end...different story (to tell).
The band clearly has the SBS front of mind on this leg of the tour. Must be prepping a pricey box set for us. I'll be into that despite it not being my favorite. I thought Walken slowed the encore down too much, but you follow it up with I Got You and things are really really really good again.
Bbop's great recap (as always) slightly mis-states the show history. This was Wilco's third appearance at the former salt factory.
Looking forward to resetting my show counter (apparently it only has a two digit capacity - constructed pre Y2K of course) to "01" on that actual 30th anniversary of my first show next week (Jackson! Show 101 on 8/20/25).
Well, well, well...hearty congratulations on your 100th! You didn't mention that approaching milestone when we chatted the other night. Definitely one to remember, then!
And thanks for the slight clarification on my post. I corrected it to what I meant to write, which is it was Wilco's second stint at the Salt Shed in as many summers (their third show there in total, of course).
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14 hours ago, theashtraysays said:
But one thing I noticed is that during the set break, just as the band was about to re-enter the stage, they flooded the stage with red light and played the theme from Jaws. Apparently they’ve done this a couple shows now but I have no idea why. Inquiry to the crew about it yielded no insight other than “Fun, right??” so for now it’s a mystery.
Oh yeah, the Jaws thing. Thanks for adding the details on that. I totally meant to, but forgot. That was a new bit to me, so maybe just a little bit of Wilcrew fun?-
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I suppose it’s true for nearly all of the shows I write about here, but for some reason I feel a particular need to add a disclaimer to this attempt at a recap. That is to say, I know that whatever drivel I concoct for Ye Olde Via Chicago is always from my own perspective but I do endeavo(u)r to be as objective as possible, report things as they happened and give some sense of the perceived vibe of a given venue and/or audience and possibly offer some historical context and that sort of thing.
So as Wilco finally brought this two-set, “Evening With…” format to Chicago on a lightly muggy August night, I must preface the paragraphs that follow by admitting that I can’t really report with much accuracy at all about what things were like throughout much of the Salt Shed Fairgrounds during the show or even how people other than those directly next to me along the rail were reacting/behaving/etc., because I only briefly left that area once all night. I’ve read some reports on social media and elsewhere about that and I’ve been to enough shows at the Salt Shed’s 5,500-capacity outdoor space to know, for instance, that there are always plenty of casual fans treating any given show as just an excuse to enjoy a summer evening out. For better or worse, shows there have become social gatherings as much as concerts, so I have to assume that was also the case for Wilco’s second
showstint at the Fairgrounds in as many summers.(And that’s not even including the people in boats, kayaks and other nautical vessels who were enjoying the show for free from the little section of the Chicago River that abuts the venue on the stage right side. I’m only mentioning them — without seeing them with my own eyes — because Jeff poked a little fun at them midway through the first set, saying “our people mean you no harm, but they will be sending someone over to collect some money.”)
Being right up front, though, did offer a certain vantage point, again for better and worse. I’ll start with the latter, which takes us to the very beginning of the show. Literally, almost as soon as Jeff and Co. started to play Story To Tell, there was a small commotion right behind us in the second row center. I thought it might have been someone trying to crash the front, but then I turned around and saw that an older gentleman — the father of a nice young guy we had been chatting with, actually — had fainted or collapsed and was on the ground not looking great. Luckily he was in a spot where security and medical staff could get to him relatively easily but it was an inauspicious start to what promised to be a long night. Jeff, for his part, could definitely see what was happening and quickly stopped playing and both band and Wilcrew members looked on with concern until it seemed like the man was getting the attention he needed and only then did they tentatively restart Story To Tell and resume the show. (The son later returned briefly and said his father seemed to be OK and was going to get checked out, so I hope that was the case.)
Anyway, as I said, being up front also had its share of benefits apart from just being able to focus on the music and get one of the best possible perspectives of the band’s interactions with one another. For instance, jumping to the very end of the show, we could see that as the Wilcrew set up for the encore, one of the techs subtly stuck what looked to be a cheat sheet to one of Jeff’s monitors, which gave me a strong suspicion that the band was going to close with its cover of the Grateful Dead’s U.S. Blues, which it recently resurrected for its shows on the Outlaw Music Festival. And that’s exactly what the show closer turned out to be, which we later learned was an audible (Outtasite (Outta Mind) had been on the printed setlist as the planned closer). Wilco had played it in Chicago before, as part of their “secret show” sets at the tiny Carol’s Pub back in 2022, but it was an inspired choice to close out a big summer gig in front of a capacity crowd.
Between that start and finish, there was plenty to talk about and I’m sure I’m going to leave at least a few things out. But I must mention that in the first set, Jeff and his bandmates reprised the twangy acoustic arrangement of I’m Always In Love that they had played (premiered?) the night before at the semi-secret benefit show they played at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Acoustic arrangement is not entirely accurate because both Nels and Pat are playing electric guitars, but instead of being the garage-y rocker it usually is, the song was transformed into kind of a lilt with Jeff letting the crowd fill in the backing vocals on the repeated “I’m worried…” lines at the climax of the tune. The rendition at Salt Shed wasn’t quite as twangy as the one from the previous night, and it kind of reverted a bit more to the original arrangement, but it was still a pretty significant rearrangement, the kind of thing that Jeff alluded to when commenting on the two-set format. “We’ve been doing this a lot lately,” he said, “just stretching out a little bit, having some fun playing some songs we don’t always get to play, so pace yourselves.”
Before Set 1 was over, Wilco had already played 17 songs and 81 minutes. That included the switching of guitar and bass between Jeff and John, which can only precede and signal the crowd-pleasing It’s Just That Simple; the live debut of Quiet Amplifier in Chicago, the Ode To Joy cut the band has only started playing in earnest this year; and Love Is Everywhere (Beware), which Jeff dedicated to Susie Lee (a reference, I’m pretty sure, to the 49-year-old co-founder of the Earlybirds Dance Club for women who had passed away the previous weekend from breast cancer).
In Set 2, which began kind of interestingly with both You Are My Face and Side With The Seeds sandwiched around Theologians, Jeff paid some more extended visits to Banter Corner. Among other utterances, Jeff shared an off-the-cuff moment with an arachnid that apparently occurred after a powerful version of Sunken Treasure. “I swear to God while we were playing that (song),” Jeff said, “a spider crawled up to me and looked at me with eyes that said, ‘Did you guys already play Spiders?’” (They, of course, had already done it in the first set, in the acoustic arrangement that many love.) Someone in the crowd yelled out, “Play it again!” To which Jeff quipped, “If we do that, the spiders win.” It was pretty random but amusing, and Jeff even followed the anecdote up a couple of songs later with a joke about how the spider had been “wearing merch, so that was cool.”
Jeff also couldn’t miss the opportunity to dedicate I’m The Man Who Loves You to his wife Susie, but instead of the funny bit he usually does about dedicating (or not) the song to her, he noted how “she just completed a 30-year period of being married to me. She deserves an EGOT, a Pulitzer, a Heimlich, a Heisman…all of the things.” Was that a better anniversary gift than throwing out the first pitch and getting a scoreboard message at a Pittsburgh Pirates game (that Susie wasn’t at)? Who can say?
By the time, the encore rolled around I think Jeff and Co. could have easily called it a night and no one would have complained. But they returned to the stage with perfect timing to squeeze in a few more before the 10 p.m. curfew for outdoor music in Chicago, including the aforementioned U.S. Blues. In the end, Wilco had played 34 songs (which I believe is the second-most at any Chicago show, at least with the current six-piece lineup, trailing only the final night of the Kicking Television shows at the Vic Theatre in 2005 when there were 36 played, though I guess it depends on how you count because that was a night there were some pretty serious technical issues and things went off the rails a bit). At any rate, 20-plus years into their existence, this group showed that it still has some tricks up its sleeve and, more importantly, seems to enjoy performing together. “Thank you, Chicago,” Jeff said as he left the stage for the final time. “It’s great to be home. You’re the best.”
Here was the complete setlist, as played, at the Salt Shed Fairgrounds (didn't get a look at a printed setlist for Set 1 so can't say if there were any changes/omissions, but as mentioned, the one for Set 2 initially had Outtasite (Outta Mind) listed as the final song of the show and also had Via Chicago added by hand):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
It's Just That Simple
Quiet Amplifier
Falling Apart (Right Now)
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
California Stars
Set 2
You Are My Face
Theologians
Side With The Seeds
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Via Chicago
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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The Late Greats
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]
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9 hours ago, King oscar said:
Thank you bbop. After reading your notes, I feel like I was in the room. Sounds initiate, perhaps like the Viking hall in Iceland?
I assume you meant “intimate.” If so, yeah, that one came to mind as well (though in kind of a different way).
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For any avid schedule-watchers who might have wondered why Wilco didn’t add a second show at Chicago’s Salt Shed this weekend when the first one sold out so quickly and there were empty dates before and after, I guess tonight’s semi-secret benefit show at the intimate Old Town School of Folk Music is at least part of the answer. The roughly 400 or so folks who crammed into Maurer Hall for OTS’ annual Blue Jean Gala shelled out $500 apiece for an evening centered around a stripped-down set by our favorite alt-rocking sextet.
I had the good fortune of being one of those in the room for what a poster for the event billed as a "jam room style performance,” which refers to the well-known but rarely-seen setup that Wilco has backstage at nearly every concert that allows the band to rehearse, warm up or, for lack of a better word, jam before they hit the stage for a given show. So this benefit really was a rare opportunity to see the band in a unique setting for what turned out to be a 14-song, 77-minute set.
There have been a handful of such intimate shows that I can remember in the history of this six-piece lineup, including in-store performances at Euclid and Waterloo Records in St. Louis, Mo., and Austin, Tex., respectively, and a benefit for KEXP radio at the Columbia City Theatre in Seattle, Wash. In Chicago, the three-shows-in-one-night at Carol’s Pub and the final stop of the so-called Incredible Shrinking Tour at Lincoln Hall come to mind. But I’m not sure that the public has ever been privy to a “jam room style” set quite like this OTS outing. A glimpse at the printed “setlist” afterward simply revealed a list of 29 songs, ranging from recent staples like Evicted and Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull to classic “hits” such as Impossible Germany and California Stars to relative rarities like At My Window Sad And Lonely and Say You Miss Me.
When the band members finally took the stage at 8:45 p.m., Jeff looking a bit like he had just woken up from a nap, they all took seated positions expertly arranged on the smallish stage. Mikael was tucked behind a single keyboard in a back corner with Nels seated on a drum stool with a small array of pedals at his feet at front stage right, while Pat had a single keyboard and a small guitar station at far stage left and Jeff and John perched on chairs in front of Glenn’s scaled-back drum kit. They were close enough that they could all sort of turn and whisper to one another as they decided what song to play next.
From the outset, Jeff established the tone with a version of how he usually prefaces his charity solo shows at the Vic Theatre each year. “We don’t have a clear idea what we’re gonna do, and that’s OK because it’s for charity,” he said. “If it’s not good, you’re a jerk to complain about it.” And with that, the band launched into the almost-abrasive noise introduction to Wishful Thinking and the show was finally underway in earnest.
Though the band seemed to genuinely be figuring out what songs to perform as the night went on — periodically Jeff would say something to effect of “we’re trying to think of another song (to play)” — the group did end up following the “script” from the printed list for the first third of the set, which included the excellent acoustic rearrangement of Art Of Almost that has been played since last December’s Winterlude shows. Amusingly, as the set started to deviate beginning with Forget The Flowers, Jeff quipped, “Half of us are into doing this one.”
One unquestioned highlight, though, certainly had to be a lovely twangy version of I’m Always In Love that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before with Jeff on acoustic guitar and Pat and Nels providing gorgeous support on electric, Pat’s Telecaster work being a real standout. I can only hope that maybe this lilting version, with Jeff even scaling back his garage-y vocals a bit, will find its way into a regular set sometime soon.
In this intimate setting, and especially within the confines of Maurer Hall (which is known as one of the best-sounding rooms in Chicago currently), both Nels’ and Pat’s work on electric guitar really stood out. Their duel on Bird Without A Tail drew the first of several standing ovations over the course of the set, and Nels got another for his beautiful, yet somehow delicate, effort on Impossible Germany. After Bird, Jeff even had to share the observation that “I think we’ve been playing the wrong-sized rooms.”
From a Banter Corner perspective, there were plenty of visits despite the relatively abridged show length — most of which featured the recurrent Wilco theme of Glenn as whipping boy. For instance, referring to an auction that was part of the gala and included several signed guitars, Jeff at one point joked that the band had auctioned off all its guitars and then added its keyboards, too. Which left Glenn looking around sheepishly and making a silent “Shhh…” signal to the audience. Jeff, of course, picked up on it and quipped, “Oh, we’ve been trying to get rid of (him) for a long time…unfortunately we have to publish our touring dates.” A couple of songs later, when the start of a song was briefly delayed, Jeff said, “We have to wait for Glenn to get his accoutrements on.” To which a someone in the crowd yelled, “C’mon, Glenn!” And that of course prompted Jeff to chime in, “See, people know who the problem is.” I won’t even get into Jeff almost digging himself into a hole when he appeared to be making another dig at Glenn that provoked some “oohs” from the crowd before Jeff clarified his comments because it would just take too long to explain.
Suffice it to say that the vibe of the benefit show was a playful, loose one, and Jeff reminded us before making that possibly ill-fated attempt at humor about why we were all there in the first place. “This is a beautiful place,” Jeff said of OTS, adding that the band couldn’t do a show here without playing at least one Woody Guthrie tune. “It gives us a great deal of pride to be able to help out in any way possible.”
Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Wilco's Blue Jean Gala benefit show (there was a printed "setlist," but it was just a list of potential songs, as mentioned above):
Wishful Thinking
Company In My Back
Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)
Evicted
If I Ever Was A Child
Forget The Flowers
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)
Hesitating Beauty
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Walken
How To Fight Loneliness
California Stars
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Once again, unfortunately, I had to sit this one out so I'm just doing the usual housekeeping here. Would be interested to hear reports from anyone who might have attended in person. I guess it was a big night for outdoor shows in the Cleveland area as I believe the very popular young jazz-pop singer Laufey also performed a sold-out show with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls. Not sure if the audiences for the two shows would have much overlap (though I, for one, am a fan of both), but if anything, I bet it brought the average age at the Wilco show even higher than it usually is...lol.
Also, Wilco kept touting the "first-ever Wilco aftershow" featuring a local band called Napsack at the Grog Shop that was free for WIlco ticketholders. Did anyone by chance make it to that gig? If so, please chime in. According to that band's post on social media, "Wilco is perhaps our collective favorite band ever. We watched them absolutely rip it for 3 hours, then rushed over to play our little set. It felt a little like seeing the London Philharmonic, then being handed a kazoo and told to do your best. We did our best!"
Here was Wilco's complete setlist, as played (thanks to the folks at Wilcoworld, though they as usual don't specify where the set break was and so I'm using setlist.fm and a couple of educated guesses on arrangements and such):
Set 1
Story To Tell
Handshake Drugs
Company In My Back
If I Ever Was A Child
Cruel Country
Forget The Flowers
Evicted
Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
Shouldn't Be Ashamed
Hesitating Beauty
Hummingbird
Via Chicago
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
It's Just That Simple
Falling Apart (Right Now)
California Stars
Set 2
You Are My Face
Whole Love
Theologians
Random Name Generator
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)
Box Full Of Letters
Annihilation
Either Way
Impossible Germany
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Heavy Metal Drummer
I'm The Man Who Loves You
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The Late Greats
Walken
I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
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On 8/8/2025 at 9:04 AM, saluqi said:
Great write up Paul, I was wondering if you were at the show. I grew up going to shows at SPAC shows, starting in '76 or '77 with Heart opening for Loggins and Messina, and all through the late '70's up until '86 when I moved to NM. All of the Dead shows, multiple Allman Brothers, Dylan, Talking Heads, Tom Petty, you name them and they played SPAC. Back then you could get in for $5 -10 there were no alcohol or food sales, just music. I have to say the Live Nation BS is so over the top in terms of the prices and nonsense about what you can bring into the venue it really detracts from the rock 'n roll experience. I planned my trip this summer to visit family and friends still living in the area to coincide the Outlaw fest, and mostly to see Wilco. The last time I saw them was a few years ago here in Albuquerque and I really needed a fix. We were out on the lawn, which was crowed but not nearly as bad it had been for others shows in the past and the crowd thinned as the night progressed. Our visuals were provided by the large video screens which did a good job of covering the action on stage, with the exception of Dylan each of the bands and their members got plenty of close ups and airtime. Dylan was just a fixed view of the stage from pretty far back, it was cold and impersonal and really detracted from enjoying a pretty good Dylan set. Needless to say I was elated to hear and see Wilco live again, it truly is a cathartic experience. As Paul said above, the highlight was the acoustic Spiders, my very favorite version of that song. For me it's probably my favorite Wilco song when played that way. Besides Wilco, Lucinda was great, she can still belt out the songs and has made an amazing recovery. Willie was incredible, 92 years old and still kicking ass. Overall it was a great night of live music on a beautiful summer night.
Paul Domski
Hey Paul, I wish I would have known you were gonna be there. Would have loved to say hi in person. It's been too long! I didn't know you were originally from upstate NY! Guess you ended up pretty far from there eventually. Glad you were able to make it make for the show, though. I bet that place must've been pretty amazing as a young music fan back in the day. Sounds like you got to see just about everybody who was touring in those days. I'm jealous!
And yeah, glad you mentioned the Live Nation thing too. It's sad (IMHO) that a huge corporate entity like that has taken over so many of the iconic amphitheaters and clubs around the country, but I guess that's kind of the way of the world these days. It took so long to get in there because of poor staffing at the gate that I missed the opening act, Waylon Payne, who I had wanted to see. The food and drink prices, of course, are brutal. At least the grounds are beautiful there and people were pretty friendly. Not all of the Live Nation sheds I've been to can claim that.
Thanks for providing a little bit of the lawn perspective. I was wondering how the view was from out there. I wasn't sitting super close or anything for this one, but luckily I got a pretty good seat right by the front of house/soundboard area. So it sounded really good from where I was. You're lucky you even got any video of Dylan at all. At Jones Beach the previous night, they had the video screens completely off for Bob's set so I thought that was how it just was every night, but I guess in places where most of the lawn folks can't even see the stage, they make a small concession. It is a pretty cold and impersonal view, though, as you said. Really cool to see Willie still doing his thing, and it made me happy that they had Wilco come out at the end even for a small cameo. Hearing Willie say "Wilco...thank y'all" when he briefly introduced them was pretty cool.
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The Tweedy show
in Just A Fan
Posted
Excellent summation, as always. Might want to change “Casey Oats” to Case Oats, but otherwise no notes. #PukeyPromSong and #ArmInTheAirSong forever!