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Who?

Good call!

Twice, if you’re really eagle-eyed!

Haven't seen it in a while, sadly...but here's hoping he hasn't gone pickle for good!

Well, Wilco went to Warsaw (or Warszawa, for my Chicago Polish cousins) for the first time, and while it could have been just a "professional" show and no one would have complained — after all, it was the band's fourth show in four nights — Jeff and Co. of course delivered an enjoyable and energetic, 29-song performance that left just about everyone wanting more. From the outside, the Progresja — or Progresja Music Zone, as I think its official name might be — doesn't seem like a particularly promising venue. It is located in a big hulking building that also houses, among other things, a rad

I assumed it wasn't LaserDisc... He was much more smiley tonight in Warsaw, fwiw!

Cool, thanks for the info. Ch-ch-ch-changes! Nice to know the “script” still isn’t set in stone...

Walking up to and into the Elbphilharmonie, the gleaming new jewel of Hamburg's harborfront revitalization project that opened in early 2017, you can't help but be bowled over by its combination of architectural elegance, accessibility and utility. It's a performing arts center, a hotel, a tourist attraction and a panoramic vista, all in one huge glass-encased, wave-shaped structure built atop an old warehouse building. The Elbphilharmonie's main concert hall, or Großer Saal, is quite a sight unto itself. The 2,100-capacity room features a setup in which the performers are on a relatively lo

Affirmative.

For the most part thus far on the European portion of Wilco’s Ode To Joy tour, Banter Corner has remained a largely lonely one with Jeff and his bandmates seemingly preferring to let their music speak for itself during slightly-longer-than-usual sets for this part of the world. In Cologne, Jeff didn’t suddenly turn into Chatty Tweedy but whether it was being back in a city in which he has performed relatively often over the years, the winding-down of the portion of the tour with old friend Spiral Stairs as the support act or something else entirely (the facial cover provided by the return of

A lot of them were, I believe. I know they got some folks to do it while they were in town for Pitchfork, like Cate and her band, and Parquet Courts and Kurt Vile. A lot of the others are either friends of the band, live in Chicago and/or have recorded at the Loft before.

Thanks for the info/details!

This CD for next month's Uncut magazine is gonna be so awesome, trust me! I love some of the song choices, too...not just the "greatest hits." Full details, via Wilco HQ's recent e-mail Tracklisting: Cate Le Bon – Company In My Back Parquet Courts – I Got Drugs (At The End Of The Century) Courtney Barnett – Dawned On Me Whitney – Far Far Away Kurt Vile – Passenger Side Low – War On War Ohmme – Kicking Television Mountain Man – You And I Ryley Walker – Love Is Everywhere (Beware) Jen Cloher – Impossible Germany James Elkington – Black Moon Sharon Van Etten – Radio Cure Liam Kazar – Sunloath

Full disclosure, I wasn't at this show so I can't report on any details. But hopefully someone who was there will chime in...c'mon Berliners (and I don't mean doughnuts)! Wilcoworld has the setlist, so I'm cross-posting here and denoting the encore break where it presumably took place. At least they answered one of my questions, which was whether they would play True Love Will Find You in the End in tribute to the recent passing of the great Daniel Johnston (they did...RIP Daniel): Bright Leaves Before Us Company In My Back War On War One and a Half Stars If I Ever Was A Child Handshake D

Herr Lotti, many, many apologies for vast delay in report from Danemark but it so happened that Mr Bjorn was just on telly (BBC) and I could not take my eyes away for much hours. Pastry also could not be totally declined, as it was...how you say...mega meta to eat a danish in Danemark! Once again, I regret these deficiencies and will try to improve in future. Welfare! That picture makes it look a lot cooler than it actually was, Tim! I mean, it was fairly intimate so I'm not complaining at all and I'd much rather see the band in this kind of setting than a posh concert hall any day. But i

On the bus home from Copenhagen’s Den Grå Hal, I overheard a local (who was presumably also writing about the show since he already had his latop open on his lap with a screen that had “Review” in big letters at the top — which, ahem, is way more dedicated than your friendly slacker VC correspondent) tell someone that he really enjoyed the concert and “if not for the technical problem, I would have given it the top mark.” Oh, if he could only have known how that technical problem — and I’m assuming he meant the botched start to Box Full Of Letters, which the band had to start and restart twi

Most definitely, most definitely. Welfare!

Dear Mr Lotti, Though it is most difficult to decline sweet treat in Daneland, I have succeeded to this point and landed safely on cobblestone ground of København, where I also renewed slumber patterns. Therefore Norseland report has at last been completed...not very well, I must admit, but it is something. Welfare!

Considering that Wilco will play its first shows ever in Mexico next year and that it still hasn't played a full-band show in Hawaii, for example, it might surprise some to learn just how regularly Jeff and/or the band have played in Oslo over the years. Almost since the band's inception in the mid-1990s, it has played various rooms and festivals in the Norwegian capital. Many of those have taken place at the Sentrum Scene, a venerable rock club a short walk from the central train station, that hosted Wilco in 2010 and 2012 and now 2019 as well as the Tweedy band in 2014 and Jeff solo in 2018.

Yeah, I was there for that show. Knew the lyrics sounded familiar, so thanks for the reminder. Jeff also took at least a fragment of lyrics from a work-in-progress that he randomly played once at a solo show in Spokane last year and seems to have incorporated them into An Empty Corner: “The silver black boot/That cracked my front tooth/Is a new kind of truth/I’m getting used to.” Just another random little thing that only the truly nerdy would care about, probably.

I use it in the context of 'blathering idiot," which is what I am half the time.

[Once again, thread parking until I get a chance to do some more substantial blathering...but we're now up to eight Ode To Joy songs played! OK, commencing blather...] With each day seemingly bringing a new song, you could argue that these days leading up to the release of a new album are among the most exciting times to be a fan of a band. And especially to have the opportunity to see the members of said band perform those new songs night in and night out as they get more and more comfortable with the material is something I don’t take for granted. So it was in Bergen tonight that Wilco a

Also forgot to mention that Jeff thanked Spiral Stairs for opening, both in Trondheim and in Stavanger. Tonight Jeff said he has “been friends with that guy for a long time, and it’s nice to be out on the road with him again.” Spiral’s post-Pavement, pre-solo band Preston School of Industry supported Wilco for a run of shows way back in 2002 on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tour. Anyway, on this run, Spiral is playing as a stripped-down duo act with an electric guitarist but it has been fun to see him again. And he has even sprinkled in a Pavement song or two (Two States, Painted Soldiers) and

With one Ode To Joy show and an early off day behind them, Wilco and crew played the second of four Norwegian shows at the Stavanger Konserthus (which was about as far removed from the venue in Trondheim as that city is from Stavanger — which, if you’re not up on your Fjordland geography, is far). The Konserthus is a gleaming performing arts center located on the Stavanger harbor with a couple of different rooms, the smaller of which (Zetlitz) was where the band performed to a crowd that felt relatively sparse but I couldn’t say for certain. Not to say that the show was uptight by any means,

You beat me to it, Lotti! Pure bathing culture, indeed.