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On 11/11/2025 at 11:14 PM, HeavyMetalDrummist said:

Any rumors, hints or speculations? I know there's that Golden Smog business, but maybe something after that?

 

I believe the Wilco folks already said they're done touring for 2025, no? In any case, I wouldn't bet on anything given the Tweedy calendar is already fairly full through March. He/they've got to take a little time off sometime.

Complete setlist, as played:

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Sign Of Life

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

Low Key

World Away

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Don’t Forget

Mirror

Stray Cats In Spain

Out In The Dark

Cry Baby Cry

Flowering

New Orleans

Diamond Light Pt. 1

No One’s Moving On

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

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

Family Ghost

You Don’t Love Me Yet [Roky Erickson]

God Save The Queen [Sex Pistols]

Enough

 

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 16.

 

“Special” song(s): If you had the Tweedy band covering the Sex Pistols on your bingo card for this Twilight Override tour, then you had more foresight than me. And even if I would have predicted such a cover, I would’ve thought it would happen at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, where bassist Sid Vicious famously punched a hole in the wall on the band’s ill-fated 1978 North American tour. But I didn’t realize that perhaps an even more infamous gig on that run happened at Dallas’ Longhorn Ballroom, which saw Vicious somehow get his face bloodied — some accounts say he was hit by a beer bottle, others that he was headbutted — and then be immortalized in a famous photograph of him playing with blood running down his chest. The lore of that incident apparently inspired Jeff to pay homage, and he took the lead vocals on a spirited rendition of God Save The Queen that he said the band had just learned earlier that afternoon. Before that, we also got a nice cover of Roky Erickson’s You Don’t Love Me Yet with Macie Stewart on lead vocals.

 

Support report: Sima Cunningham, playing solo electric with a hollow-body Gibson, as she has been doing during her turns as the opening act on this tour. She has been featuring mostly songs from her solo record High Roller, but also played a more recent composition and also invited Finom bandmate Stewart to join her on As You Are off the duo’s most recent, Jeff-produced album Not God. Sima’s set was as follows: For Liam/Your Bones/High Roller/Both Ways/Nothing/new-I’m Really Scared/As You Are (w/Macie Stewart on violin and co-vocals).

 

Venue vibes: The Longhorn Ballroom has a long history as a country-and-western dance hall that, since its opening in 1950, has been operated at various points by western swing king Bob Wills as well as Lee Harvey Oswald-shooter Jack Ruby. The current setup seems to be a flexible one in which it can be all reserved seating or some combination of a general admission standing area in front of the stage surrounded by different tiers of seating, which was the case for this show. In either case, the stage is relatively high — approximately five feet — and while there is no barricade separating the stage from the audience, there is a weird three-foot tall wood block that spans the entire length of the stage (quite handy as a place to put a drink or stow your merch purchases, I must say) that somewhat prevents the crowd from getting too close. Generally speaking, the Longhorn feels pretty big — befitting its Texas setting — and indeed the listed capacity of 2,250 was definitely larger than most of the venues the Tweedy band has been playing on this tour.

 

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

• You could tell that Jeff was fascinated to be playing in the same room as that infamous Sex Pistols gig. He told the audience, prior to God Save The Queen, that, “I love this place so much. I’ve never been here before, but I get to see stuff that I’ve only seen in movies or on TV.” Afterward, he asked if anyone in attendance had also been at that Pistols’ show in 1978. “They’re all dead, right?” Jeff asked. One guy yelled back, “They were making us!” To which Jeff shot back, “They were fucking to the Sex Pistols? Really? Well, that explains a lot about you fellas.” Then Jeff added, “I was 10, so I wasn’t making anybody.”
• More from Banter Corner: Jeff once again mentioned the “ambiguous” ending of KC Rain (No Wonder) — which I meant to say in the Tulsa show notes that the band avoided that night by going straight into Having Been Is No Way To Be — and joked that “every night we play that one and there’s just a little gap (of silence) that leaves me shitting my pants because no one’s clapping.”
• Speaking of clapping, I noticed that there was more encouragement by Jeff and some of his bandmates for the audience to clap along at points, such as as the start of Flowering and midway through Diamond Light Pt. 1. I guess there are obvious clapalongs during a few Wilco songs as well (The Late Greats, Spiders (Kidsmoke)), but  I just always think of how Jeff sort of shakes his head when people start clapping along during some of his solo shows, and has even talked about how he can find clapping distracting, so I found the encouragement of it here kind of amusing.
• Twilight Override, which has been the first song of the encore for every show since the tour started in earnest on 8 October, got cut from the setlist tonight. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think it was on the printed setlist; it just didn’t get played for some reason. Unless I missed another instance, this was the first time on the tour that the title track hasn’t been played. Overall, this show was a little shorter than most have been on this run, clocking in at 1 hour, 51 minutes.
• On World Away, which I also mentioned in the Tulsa show notes, the band once again changed up the arrangement a little bit, which I guess they have been doing on this run. But I finally kind of took notice of the whole thing tonight, in particular the rest of the band taking the vocals on the second and third verses while Jeff does his shredding on electric guitar. And there is also that instrumental almost-coda to the song the way they’re playing it now, which I also appreciated more tonight.
• When he introduces all of the band members, Jeff usually says something to the effect of “everyone up here makes records outside of this project,” and the last couple of shows I’ve seen, Jeff has even noted that the guy who drives the truck with all of their gear has a record out. We need to get the details on that! “The point is to encourage you all to make records,” Jeff said in part.

Complete setlist, as played:

Western Clear Skies

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Parking Lot

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

Low Key

World Away

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Mirror

Stray Cats In Spain

Out In The Dark

Ain’t It A Shame

Flowering

New Orleans

Diamond Light Pt. 1

No One’s Moving On

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

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

Twilight Override

Family Ghost

Wish I Had Not Said That [J.J. Cale]

Do Re Mi [Woody Guthrie]

Enough

 

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 18.

 

“Special” song(s): Obviously with Oklahoma, there are so many possibilities — among the ones that came to my mind right away were Okie From Muskogee by Merle Haggard and Oklahoma, U.S.A. by The Kinks, not to mention something by the Flaming Lips. But as usual, Jeff and Co. were not nearly that obvious, opting for a perhaps lesser-known tune by the native Tulsan singer-songwriter J.J. Cale, Wish I Had Not Said That, on which Liam Kazar took the lead vocals. Then came maybe a bit more of an expected choice, at least in terms of the artist, with Jeff himself singing lead on Woody Guthrie’s classic tune Do Re Mi.

 

Support report: Liam, playing solo acoustic. I believe this was his first performance since his new record Pilot Light officially came out two days prior, and tonight he did several of the songs he has been playing from that record on this tour, including early singles Day Off and Didn’t I. The full set was: Pilot Light/The Word The War/I’ve Been Where You Are/Holiday/Shoes Too Tight/Day Off/Didn’t I.

 

Venue vibes: Cain’s, of course, is always a fun place to see a show. The converted honky tonk/dance hall with a mostly standing room capacity of 1,800 was far from sold out, I think, but there was still a decent crowd. Jeff mentioned always visiting the now-preserved section of drywall from the green room in which the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious once punched a hole after the band played Cain’s in 1978 during their only North American tour. One noteworthy bit about this show was the lack of a barricade separating the audience from the stage, which, after consulting with some local friends who’ve gone to a number of shows there, is apparently unusual.

 

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

• Just after Jeff gave his usual spiel about how there were a few quieter songs in the set and how he felt like he should give audiences a heads up — like David Lee Roth would…just kidding — and the band started playing Stray Cats In Spain, a woman right at the front apparently fainted and hit the ground with a sickening thud. When it became evident that someone was down, the band stopped playing and everything came to a halt while security and medical personnel attended to the woman. The good news was she appeared to regain at least some consciousness before they helped her up and escorted her to get checked out further, but it was of course a scary moment (sadly, one that's not all that uncommon these days). Somehow Jeff and Co. picked up exactly where they had left off and afterward Jeff said, in part to lighten the mood, “That might be my favorite version of that we’ve ever done. We’re gonna add that interlude every time.”
• Another lady at the front threatened to derail the show after initially making a cool request — more on that in a second — when she had several cringey exchanges with Jeff in which she repeatedly professed her love for him and also that she wanted to follow him or something like that. Once when she said, “I love you, Jeff,” he looked around awkwardly and zipped his jacket up to his neck as an expression of self-protection. After the “following” comment, Jeff joked that he knew he was “dressed like a cult leader” (he was wearing a cream colored jacket and matching chinos) but that he wasn’t that kind of figure. Unfortunately, in the shuffling of the crowd after the woman fainted, the crazy lady wound up sidling in right next to me for most of the remainder of the show and even tried to give me an unwelcome hug at one point. She also started in on Spencer, too, saying she loved him and gesturing in his direction, though he did well to ignore her. I’m sure I’m not doing the best job of conveying this whole extended scene, but it added a definite tension to the proceedings up front until she thankfully left halfway through the encore.
• The thing about this cringey lady was that she apparently was a big fan of the Sukierae album because she audibly reacted whenever a song from that record got played. In fact, her whole interaction with Jeff got started when she blurted out “Understood!” which Jeff somehow correctly interpreted as a request for the song Please Don’t Let Me Be So Understood. The Tweedy band of that era played it pretty regularly while touring that record, but it hasn’t been performed in more than nine years. Still, Jeff started to play the riff and Spencer picked up immediately with the drum beat and they gave it a good shot for 10 seconds or so before Jeff admitted, “I don’t think we know that one.” He added, jokingly, “Let’s nip this in the bud. This isn’t ‘Stump The Band,’” but also said he appreciated that someone seemed to know the name of a song on one of the Tweedy (band) records.
• Was it just me or did the band kind of do a little different ending to World Away by just keeping it instrumental to finish out the song instead of the vocal coming back in at the end? I’d have to hear it again, but I wondered if that was intentional.
• Speaking of endings, Jeff had an amusing little flub at the end of Forever Never Ends when he sang the “In a red cummerbund” line from the first verse again instead of the correct “In the middle of a nightmare.” He exchanged a sheepish look with Sima and then, after the song had ended, re-sang the ending again for his own edification, saying, “That’s how that goes.”
• Of the blueish(?), crescent-shaped guitar he uses on Flowering, Jeff quipped, “This thing has more fans than I do.”
• In the encore Jeff explained the “special song” to the audience, but said that lately he and his bandmates had actually been doing two unique songs because they couldn’t decide between the ones they had chosen. And that was once again the case tonight. “Don’t get too excited,” Jeff warned the crowd. “We just learned these (songs) this afternoon.”

Because this is an inflection point of sorts on this part of the Twilight Override tour, I'm going to jump ahead and post this Chicago recap now. But rest assured I will eventually get all caught up with the other shows from the tour that haven't been addressed here yet...

 

Complete setlist, as played:

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Parking Lot

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

World Away

Low Key

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Mirror

Gwendolyn

Stray Cats In Spain

Out In The Dark

Ain’t It A Shame

Flowering

New Orleans

Diamond Light Pt. 1

No One’s Moving On

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

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

Twilight Override

Family Ghost

Half-Asleep (w/James Elkington on electric guitar)

Tell Me Something Good [Rufus] (w/Sima Cunningham on lead vocals and James Elkington on electric guitar)

Far, Far Away (w/Dustin Laurenzi and Sen Morimoto on saxophone)

Enough

 

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 17.

 

“Special” song: Or songs, as it were. First came Tell Me Something Good by Rufus, with Sima doing her best Chaka Khan on lead vocals, which the band apparently just learned backstage prior to the show before performing it that night. Then came what Jeff said was initially going to be the “special song” with a horn-supplemented version of Far, Far Away by a certain Chicago outfit.

 

Support report: Macie Stewart performed mostly the same set of songs she has been playing during her opening slots on this tour, but being home in Chicago, she was able to have a full ensemble behind her with Whitney Johnson on viola, Zach Moore on upright bass and both Dustin Laurenzi and Sen Morimoto on saxophone. Sima Cunningham joined the group on electric guitar for the last song, a new one.

 

Venue vibes: The Salt Shed, a large, converted salt factory which has rapidly become one of the premier venues in Chicago, hosts shows both outdoors during the warmer months and indoors year-round. The indoor space is fairly cavernous — total capacity: 3,500 — and features a large standing-room floor with a VIP seated balcony on one side and a grandstand with reserved stadium seating in the back facing the stage.

 

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

• Jeff said the plan for the “special song” was originally just going to be Far, Far Away, “but my wife got so mad at me because she wanted a dance song” that the band quickly pulled Tell Me Something Good together to round out the program. And once again, thank goodness for Susie’s intervention. I mean, Far, Far Away would have been a nice surprise as these things go, and Jeff mentioned how the song held a special significance for him vis a vis Chicago specifically because of his memories of the room he would stay in when he visited his future home city during the early days of his and Susie’s relationship. But it was nice to get a little funkiness at the end of the night, at least IMHO.
• Likewise, it was great to see James Elkington join for a couple of songs in the encore. Jeff noted his status as “an alum” of the Tweedy band and also noted his contributions to more than a few of the songs on the studio recording of Twilight Override.
• A funny visit to Banter Corner came after KC Rain (No Wonder) when Jeff acknowledged that “we have a lot of songs that end ambiguously. You weren’t sure it was over, were you?” The brief, uncertain pause before the audience response, Jeff said, caused him to be left standing there proverbially “shitting my pants waiting for the applause.” When Jeff apparently heard someone yell out a cheer just then, he added, “Are you cheering someone shitting their pants? I’ll take it! It’s something I’m good at.”
• Fittingly the very next song in the set, Mirror, also features kind of an awkward ending, and Jeff literally got a look on his face that said, “See what I mean?” and smiled broadly at what he had just spoken about coming to pass.
• Another visit to Banter Corner came when Jeff was introducing the band and said in part, “one of the thrills of my life is getting to travel around and play music with these talented people,” pointing to Sima, Liam and Macie, “and my children.” Obviously Jeff was joking, but he chided himself, adding, “That’s not very nice.”
• One other bit of banter involved Jeff talking about how there were a few quieter numbers in the setlist and he would try to give audience members a heads up before those, so they would presumably pay extra close attention. Then Jeff briefly mused about his frontman skills and how “I still wish I was David Lee Roth. But David Lee Roth would never tell you when a quiet song was about to happen…because there never would be a quiet song.”
• One of the Twilight Override tracks not always in regular rotation but that seems to be gaining traction of late is No One’s Moving On, when Liam and Sima switch spots and instruments on stage with Liam taking over bass duties while Sima plays electric guitar. It seems like the band has found a groove on that song over the past few shows.

Complete setlist, as played:

Western Clear Skies

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Cry Baby Cry

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

Low Key

Evergreen

Mirror

Stray Cats In Spain

Out In The Dark

KC Rain (No Wonder)

New Orleans

Guess Again

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Amar Bharati

World Away

Half-Asleep

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

Twilight Override

Diamond Light Pt.1

Helpless [Neil Young; recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young]

Enough

 

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 17.

 

“Special” song: Helpless, by Neil Young. This was kind of an obvious choice, since it's by a Canadian legend and is a song that this lineup has covered relatively often in recent years with Sammy Tweedy taking lead vocals. Still, it was the first time the band had performed it in in Canada and it must have had added resonance there.

 

Support report: Macie Stewart, playing solo electric. I saw an Instagram video clip of Macie being joined by her friend Karen Ng — they played together in Canadian indie band The Weather Station — on saxophone on a newer Macie song that she was calling Cold/Love/Friend when it was first written last year (though that title might have since changed).

 

Venue vibes: Located within a century-old Masonic temple, The Concert Hall is an event space that holds up to 700 and is known for its fine acoustics. It's unclear if the wooden floor has anything to do with that, but it certainly gives the space a handsome look. It appears from photos that the room was set up for this show as standing general admission on the floor, though there were also some seats available in the balcony.

 

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

• This show kicked off with the second-ever live performance (and first in the Twilight Override era) of Western Clear Skies, which I hadn't realized — or had forgotten — was played during the Tweedy and Friends set at Solid Sound 8 last summer.
• Looking at some photos of the show, it appears that the stage setup remained the same as the previous show in Three Oaks, Mich., with Sammy behind his synth table at stage left, Sima and Macie together to Jeff's right and Liam remaining at far stage right. Eventually this stage plot will change, but not yet.
• I'm pretty sure that Susie was in attendance at this show — I believe she has some family in Toronto — which might explain the inclusion of Guess Again on the setlist. One blurb accompanying a YouTube clip of Feel Free and Lou Reed Was My Babysitter that I read mentioned Jeff saying "he had been growing (the members of his band) in his terrarium." Perhaps Susie being there in person gave Jeff some pause at joking about growing Spencer and Sammy in his body, as he sometimes does when he can't get in immediate trouble.

 

Because I’ve been such a laggard in keeping up with these first shows of the Twilight Override era — in the interest of transparency, I’m writing this three full weeks after the first “real” (i.e., headlining) gig of the tour — and because I haven’t been able to attend as many of them as I usually do, I’m changing up my recap format a bit and trying something new.

Or actually old. If you came of age in or are a consumer of old-fashioned newspaper journalism as I did and am, you will probably recognize a version of the tried-and-true “notes column” in what follows. I think this format will be a good way to report most of the pertinent details of these TO shows (inasmuch as anyone on here even cares anymore) because the shows have kind of settled into a certain formula of sorts as the tour has gone on. And moving forward, since I regretfully won’t be able to get to many of the shows in person over the next couple of weeks, this will hopefully be an effective way to organize the information gathered from various sources both first- and second-hand.

So without further ado, let’s try and get this train back on the tracks (at least until the site goes down again…):

Complete setlist, as played:

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Parking Lot

Forever Never Ends

Love Is The King

Mirror

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Betrayed

Out In The Dark

Better Song

New Orleans

Low Key

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Amar Bharati

Stray Cats In Spain

World Away

Cry Baby Cry

Gwendolyn

This Is How It Ends

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

Twilight Override

Diamond Light Pt.1

You Are Not Alone

Enough

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 18.

“Special” song: None. In future shows, as Jeff would announce, he and his bandmates would decide to play one “special” song at each show that they wouldn’t play anywhere else. I think it’s a great idea and I look forward to seeing what songs get played moving forward, but for this first night of the run, unfortunately, it appears that they had not yet decided to make this part of the show.

Support report: Sima Cunningham, playing solo electric. As would also come to be the case at future shows, Sima would invite Macie Stewart to join her for the final song of her set, the Finom cut As You Are.

Venue vibes: A sold-out intimate theater with both reserved and general admission seating (the reserved seats, including most of those in the center front section closest to the stage, seemed to be assigned to theater members/donors). According to the theater’s Web site, the capacity is 300 seats.

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

•         The stage alignment showed that Jeff and Co. hadn’t completely figured out what they wanted to do yet, or what would work best. For this first gig, Sammy’s table setup with his synth was situated at stage left, while Sima and Macie were next to each other to Jeff’s right and Liam was all the way at far stage right. This stage plot would change for future shows, putting the rhythm section of Spencer and Sima closer to each other to Jeff’s left and shifting Sammy from stage left to stage right.
•       Parking Lot was another TO song that made its live debut here, and I think this was maybe the one that a lot of people had been most looking forward to seeing live. It's weird seeing Jeff do essentially a spoken word piece, but I thought the song blended into the set quite well. I don't know if it reminds anyone else of Cassandra Jenkins' meditative track Hard Drive, but it kind of does for me.
•         Diamond Light Pt. 1 was a more-than-pleasant surprise when it showed up in the encore. It had been more than eight years since it had last been played, dating back to Solid Sound 5 in 2017 when Darin Gray was still holding down the bass slot in the Tweedy band.
•         It remains to be seen just how deep a cut Better Song will end up being, but this show has been the only one so far (through 27 October) in which that Twilight Override tune has been played.
•         Jeff didn’t make a lot of noteworthy visits to Banter Corner, but just before the end of the show he quipped, “We’re driving to Canada tonight. We’ll see if we come back.” Earlier in the set, after Mirror, he remarked how it was the first time the band had played that song in front of people. “You’re in for a bunch of firsts tonight, I think,” he said. Of course, the sextet immediately followed that up with two songs — KC Rain (No Wonder) and Betrayed — it had performed publicly before, causing Jeff to note after the latter, “Sorry to say we (have) played that in front of an audience. I apologize.” One other funny remark came in the second half of the set when Jeff noticed that a particular pocket of the audience seemed especially enthusiastic. “The people over there seem very excited,” Jeff said, gesturing over to his left. “That’s where the bar is, isn’t it?”

I didn't make it out to San Francisco in person, but I did watch this show via the live stream...so it almost felt like I was there. But not quite. Anyway, I guess this was the first real show of the Twilight Override era in that it was the first one with the full band playing songs from the album that anyone — and literally anyone, since it's free — could attend. The roughly 65-minute set took place on the Towers Of Gold stage on the second day of the three-day event and, from what I could see, featured a pretty sizable crowd.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played:

 

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Cry Baby Cry

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

Low Key

A Robin Or A Wren

Gwendolyn

Amar Bharati

California Stars

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Feel Free

Enough

On a Sunday afternoon/evening after a Cubs game — an especially brutal loss, as I recall — Jeff headlined the third annual JCC Chicago Growing Hope concert in the Gallagher Way space outside Wrigley Field. JCC Chicago is a Jewish community organization (the largest Jewish community center in North America, according to its Web site), so it was a natural fit for Jeff to perform solo alongside a number of other artists "to celebrate hope, community, and the transformative power of music," according to a press release. An estimated 2,000 people attended the event — though not me, sadly.

 

Here was Jeff's complete setlist, as played, with a hat tip to Wilcoworld:

 

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Guess Again

Feel Free

Gwendolyn

Enough

I'm Always In Love

Jesus etc.,

You Are Not Alone

I Am My Mother

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Another Jeff solo set, headlining the three-day Ellnora Guitar Festival at the University Of Illinois. Was anybody on here there?

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, according to Wilcoworld:

 

Story To Tell

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Feel Free

Please Tell My Brother

Enough

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Stray Cats In Spain

A Lifetime To Find

Impossible Germany

Country Song Upside-Down

Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)

Love Is For Love

New Madrid

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

OK, this site isn't dead yet...lol. Let the housekeeping begin.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Jeff's solo headlining set at this year's ICSF, courtesy of the folks at Wilcoworld:

 

Story To Tell

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Feel Free

Enough

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Gwendolyn

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Family Ghost

Forever Never Ends

Stray Cats In Spain

A Lifetime To Find

Please Tell My Brother

I'm Always In Love

New Madrid

Impossible Germany

Country Song Upside-Down

Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)

You And I

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

17 minutes ago, u2roolz said:

The Tweedy Show Episode 226

Monday September 29, 2025

–The Tweedy Show video intro

—Jeff welcomes everyone. Basil is there, as is Casey and Spencer and Sammy. 
—Susie misses her dad, the late Peter Miller, when PedroBot is mentioned by a client in the comments.

—Jeff jokingly shows Casey Oats’ new record, then he shows Twilight Override on vinyl. 
—Jeff explains that the Planetarium show & SubStack stream last Friday made them miss The Tweedy Show. They wanted to do one soon. 
Feel Free (Spencer on drums & backing vocals. Sammy on backing vocals.) 

—Congrats go out to Spencer & Casey on their recent engagement and Sammy on graduating college. 
—Jeff mentions that Sammy has a record coming which Jeff & Spencer produced. 

Mexico (Sammy Tweedy original sung & performed on guitar by Sammy. Spencer on drums & backing vocals. Jeff on electric guitar.)

—Spencer talks about dressing up as Jeremy Allen White for Halloween last year. There is a pic on Spencer’s Instagram of his costume. 
Cry Baby Cry (Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on thigh slaps, drums and backing vocals. Sammy on backing vocals. **from Twilight Override not The Beatles song.**
—Susie mentions that Lemmy is still there in the window and that the bullet hole is still there too. 
—Susie talks about the Lounge Ax documentary that is going to be made. There is currently a Kickstarter page for fundraising and it also features a trailer. 
—Spencer tells a Cheech & Chong story/joke that is broken up by “the glitch”. [something about finding weed in a record store that might’ve been from the legendary comedy duo.]
Tiny (Casey Oats original sung & performed on guitar by Casey. Spencer on backing vocals.)

—Jeff talks about how the acoustic guitar that Casey used to play her song is named Molly. It is named after the previous owner of the guitar. He recorded Golden Smog’s Please Tell My Brother with it. Most of Jeff’s guitars that he uses on stage have names to them which makes it easier for the guitar/stage techs to find. 
Stray Cats In Spain (Jeff on electric guitar)

—Jeff briefly mentions that the song is about the rockabilly band with the same name. 
—Spencer talks about his experience at this month’s Farm Aid. 
This Is How It Ends (Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on drums.)

KC Rain (No Wonder) (Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on drums & backing vocals. Sammy on backing vocals.) 

—Jeff doesn’t know how to play a few songs live off of the triple record yet. 
Parking Lot (Spencer on drums)

Over My Head (Everything Goes) (Spencer on drums & backing vocals. Sammy on backing vocals.)

—Susie reveals that the music video for Lou Reed Was My Babysitter was filmed in Peter Miller’s basement. 
—Jeff says that there was no interaction with Bob Dylan on this past summer’s Outlaw Festival. However, he got Willie Nelson to sign a guitar for him. 
Human (Molly Sarle cover sung by Sammy. Spencer on drums & backing vocals.){it really glitches here quite a bit.}
—a Tweedy discussion on how to fix the glitch. 
Enough (Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on drums & backing vocals. Sammy on backing vocals.)

Reincarnation (Roger Miller cover. Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on drums.)

—“We should do it again soon.” - Susie

“Jam ending/fake ending” instrumental  (Jeff on electric guitar. Spencer on drums.)

—“See you on the road” - Jeff 

 

 

Well, this was a nice surprise that no one expected. It was nice to see everyone in the living room and everyone sounded great. 👍👍

Btw, this episode comes in just under an hour & a half. 

Excellent summation, as always. Might want to change “Casey Oats” to Case Oats, but otherwise no notes. #PukeyPromSong and #ArmInTheAirSong forever! 

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!

“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

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

Walken

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

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

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

California Stars

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

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.

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

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

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

I don’t know how well this will work, but here’s a shot of Jeff holding the aforementioned bread…

 

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

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

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

51 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

(Mon)ta(na)

 

Tony or Joe?

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)

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]

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…

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

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

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

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

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

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)