bböp

20 hours ago, Marijn said:

How did you (finally) find out the name of the song? Good ol’ Shazam? 😄

 

Yeah, my Soundhound failed but one of the Scots' Shazam did the trick. The lyrics don't appear to be online anywhere!

[At the airport waiting to board my flight back to the USA, so not sure how far along I'll get on this recap now, but I'll finish it up later. Tatlock will likely be occupied with the ruggers through the weekend, so that should buy me enough time.] [Edit: It didn't even buy me enough time to get to my gate, since Tatlock is a maniac. Ah well, I will complete this when I get  back on U.S. soil...which I actually did and then somehow my additions disappeared in a computer calamity before I could save them. Alas. So here goes yet another attempt that no one will read.]

 

When I think back on this past few weeks of traveling to shows in Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland,  I'll remember the older and newer friends that I got to reconnect and spend time with, the new places I am lucky to have gotten to visit, the heat (oh, the heat) and the general highs and lows of tour life. And if there's one song that will stick in my head from this time, it's definitely going to be "Let Go The Coat" by E.R. Jurken, which I literally just discovered was co-produced by Mark Greenberg at The Loft and which somehow came up in the house music mix at some point during almost every show on this run. If you know you know...take the medication, take the medication.

 

I'm not sure what this really has to do with tonight's tour-closing gig in Cork, except that the Jurken song echoed through the Cork Opera House right after Wilco capped its final performance of this European tour with a rousing version of Spiders (Kidsmoke) and received one more well-deserved ovation from an adoring crowd of about 1,600.

 

It was the culmination of a solid five weeks of touring, including rehearsals and travel, that saw Jeff and his bandmates complete the primary touring cycle, more or less, for Cruel Country — with Cousin set to come out in a few weeks — as well as continue to solidify a fanbase in Europe that seems to grow and become more devoted each time the band tours over here. That included three sold-out shows in Ireland, the last of which in Cork was part of the excellent, biennial Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival and also served as the band's debut here.

 

Jeff acknowledged as much when he said, "So good to see you, finally." And before the start of the encore, he poked a little fun at the decidedly unstaid-looking, modernist venue, quipping, "Thanks for inviting us to your opera house. Do they really do opera here? Well, this is our opera." He continued, "Seriously, though, it's so sweet to be invited to places like this. We love being in your country. We love it in Cork, so thank you so much."

 

Now I'm not sure if Cork, which is Ireland's second-largest city, has the same relationship/rivalry with Dublin as, say, Chicago does with New York — the Second City and all that — but at least a couple of Jeff's other visits to Banter Corner during the course of the show had to do with (jokingly) pitting one city against the other. The first came about halfway through the show when Jeff thanked Cork and asked whether it was actually pronounced "cork" or "cairk." When some audience members attempted to answer his question, he replied, "Ah, I'm not gonna be able to pronounce it correctly. But it's not Dublin, right? That was so 24 hours ago." Jeff quickly admitted he was just kidding and falling back on the tried-and-true "show biz" practice in which a performer denigrates a previous audience to the current one to make them feel superior. "Everyone knows this," Jeff said. "But you're better than that. You don't need that."

 

Then later, while attempting to get more of the crowd to participate in clapping together, Jeff reverted back once again to those show-business tactics. "They weren't very good at clapping (in Dublin)," he told the Corkonians during The Late Greats. "So if you want to outshine them, I think it'd be a good way to show your superiority. What do I know?"

 

That was pretty much it for Jeff's commentary during the 2-hour, 3-minute show, other than poking a little fun at Nels in the aftermath of yet another huge ovation post-Impossible Germany. Other than that, Jeff and Co. pretty much let the music speak for itself. Perhaps the only setlist surprise was Via Chicago in the encore, played for the first time on the entire tour but not as a lead-in to the Many Worlds coda, as it almost exclusively has been since the release of Cruel Country, but rather as precursor to the show-closing Spiders. Of course it really shouldn't have been much of a surprise at all since Wilco/Jeff usually play it at the final show of a tour before heading home, but in this case, I just figured it was out of the rotation for now.

 

After such a frantic, sweaty show in Dublin the previous night, I have to admit that this Cork gig — which was added well after the rest of the European run was announced — seemed like it might be a bit of a letdown in some ways. But far from that, I think it was ultimately fun to end the run in a new place and with a relatviely fresh audience that mostly was seeing the band for the first time. In my mind, anyway, I guess Cork ended up being a sort-of encore show to the rest of the tour's main set, if you will.

 

And on a personal note, although the Cork show was the first one on this run when I was truly flying solo, without any good friends to hang out with beforehand or have a drink with afterward (which made the "it's good to be alone" line in Spiders particularly resonant), I didn't really feel alone. I was happy to glimpse at least a couple of familiar faces — you know who you are — and of course there's always Wilco's music, not to mention hearing those songs like Jurken's each night that served as a through line, reminding me of where I'd been, who I'd been with and how far I'd come to be here yet again.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Cork (the printed setlist I saw had Dawned On Me listed near the end of the main set, but it was scratched out prior to the show):

 

Hell Is Chrome

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

California Stars

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Via Chicago>

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

On the penultimate night of this European tour, Wilco left the audience at the legendary 3Olympia Theatre sweaty and out of breath after yet another two-hour show filled with plenty of rock 'n' roll moments. That's the level of professionalism and consistency of a veteran sextet that has played so many gigs together over the years. Yet if you looked closely and listened to some of what Jeff was saying, you could also see that there's some sense of relief that the finish line is fast approaching and that they and their crew will be able to get a much-needed break very soon.

 

Can a band be excellent, and a little tired, at the same time? I suppose I ask this question somewhat rhetorically.

 

Whether it was due to a language barrier earlier in the tour or simply not wanting to make any excuses, Jeff hasn't mentioned his hip ailment even once that I can remember on this run. I'm sure those fans on this side of the pond who keep up with Jeff and Wilco a little more closely have been aware of the situation like those of us in the U.S., but there are probably many others who have gone to shows over here who don't know. And to his credit, Jeff has pretty much managed it as well as you possibly could while still doing what he does. But tonight in Dublin, it was painfully clear — at least to me — that he needs some time off. My heart really went out to him when he came back on stage for the encore, dragging one leg behind him almost like a wounded animal. Oy vey.

 

When the audience gave the band a loud ovation at that moment, Jeff gave a typically self-deprecating response: "Thank you very much, but I think it's probably a bit much. Not for (the rest of the band) — they deserve it — but for me." And earlier in the show, after watching the crew deal with another minor technical issue, Jeff quipped, "It's a good thing we only have one more show left. All of our stuff is falling apart, including me."

 

Amid those challenges, there still were plenty of musical highlights. Such as a thunderous Misunderstood with an epic number of "nothings" and to which Jeff thanked the crowd afterward for singing along. "Boy does that sound good," he said. I thought the main set-closing A Shot In The Arm also had a lot of juice, especially in the relatively intimate confines of a room like the 1,600-capacity Olympia, which felt like a bandbox from another era from the inside and which Jeff likened to "playing inside a wedding cake. I like it."

 

Box Full Of Letters, meanwhile, let to Jeff's funniest (or most awkward, depending on how you look at it) visit to Banter Corner. Jeff introduced the song by referring to another classic Dublin music venue, Whelan's, and saying he thought Wilco might have played there when Box came out. When one punter confirmed that and said something to the effect of, "And we're still here," Jeff replied, "Thank you, and did you get your prostate checked? It's just good advice. And also don't forget to get a mammogram. Let's face it, there's not nearly" as much need for that, referring to the heavily male composition of the audience.

 

Then to Glenn who, of course, let Jeff twist in the wind for just a beat longer before finally kicking things off. "OK, I'm ready...you can start the song." Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny. Afterward, Jeff continued to poke a little more fun at himself for the previous tangent by asking, "How's everybody doing? I'm recovering from my last bit of banter."

 

That was pretty much it for Jeff's comments at the Olympia, other than a brief fascination with a stray balloon that someone apparently unleashed. When his bandmates were about to start playing Jesus, etc., Jeff held them up momentarily. "OK, I have to ask, 'What's the deal with the balloon?'" he said, before taking a unscientific audience poll that resulted in no clear preference. "Who wants it to stay? Who wants it to go away? Suit yourself."

 

Should I stay, or should I go? I suppose the same question could very well have been asked about Wilco. Of course, the audience at the Olympia would almost certainly have opted for the former, given that this was the band's first show in the Irish capital in more than seven years. But at this stage in the tour, and with Jeff clearly struggling physically, I think the band probably gave about as much as it could for now, so it would be a more prudent decision to go home, get well and give it another go — here and elsewhere — hopefully before too much time passes.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Dublin (apparently, Spiders (Kidsmoke) was on the printed list as the final song of the show, but was omitted in favor of I'm A Wheel):

 

Hell Is Chrome

Story To Tell

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

California Stars

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (RIght Now)

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

I'm A Wheel

14 hours ago, gogo said:

 

Did you know that Trish did her semester abroad at Queens? And a cousin of mine was President of the QU Student Union a couple of years ago.

 

I did not know that! I will have to quiz her about her time there next time we meet, and about pan boxty too!

 

14 hours ago, gogo said:

I saw Wilco in a student union location much like bbop describes at Queens, I think it was in San Diego?  bbop was there, he might remember it.  I don't see anything on Wilcobase that looks like it matches my recollection.  Hmmm...

 

Edit:  Price Center "Ballroom" at UC San Diego, which is technically in La Jolla!  There it is!

 

Still one of my fave student union shows! Ah, La Jolla...kind enough to set up a "Line Starts Here" sign for me/us as well...

10 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Also @bböp I may be neglecting you in the next month or so (weekends anyway) - it's RWC time! Hurrah!

 

Will the Tatlock be making an appearance in Le France? I hear Toulouse is nice this time of year. Best of luck to your ruggermen!

I've always had a soft spot for shows at college student unions, I guess just because the idea that a legitimate touring band would actually come and play a show in a building where students go every day to hang out, lounge around, meet friends, do homework, shop for groceries, books and other supplies, squeeze in a meal between classes and whatever else you can do at a student union these days seems so weird to me. The idea that a section of this campus building would be cordoned off and used as a de facto concert venue to which those not even affiliated with the school would also be admitted and whilst other student activities are simultaneously going on kind of boggles my mind.

 

Having had the good fortune to see a few such shows over the years (and regretted missing out on many more that Wilco have played in both the U.S. and U.K. in its earlier days), I've been charmed by the relative quaintness of it all. The room where the show actually happens is usually fairly intimate and the stage setup is often kind of ramshackle — which typically means a lower, more front-of-the-audience-friendly stage and one that allows the audience to be relatively close to the performers — so the gigs tend to have a certain kind of DIY-ness or at least a lack of polish that set them apart from, say, a typical LiveNation-type venue.

 

At the same time, I've come to realize that these kinds of gigs can sometimes be the most challenging ones for a veteran production staff/crew and those who are tasked with setting everything up and making the show happen because they are not working with folks who do this sort of thing every day. So what might be good things for us as fans are the same things that are the biggest sources of frustration for the behind-the-scenes folks. You can't make everyone happy all the time, I guess.

 

As for WIlco's first-ever regular headlining show in Belfast — the band had previously headlined a festival here in 2010 — I had heard that there were a few production challenges for the Wilcrew to get Mandela Hall up to snuff for a proper gig. The hall was simply an open ballroom with a standing capacity of about 1,000 on the ground floor of the very modern-looking and stylish Queens University Students' Union. The minute I saw it, I had the feeling we'd be ending the evening with some kind of "rock songs, etc." finale.

 

More to come, but for now here was the complete setlist as played for in Belfast (once again, I didn't see a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions...though I'm fairly certain there was at least one):

 

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Whole Love

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

California Stars

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

I'm A Wheel

8 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

What, I'm going to spend 15 minutes a day with a cup of tea staring at a blank screen?

 

P.S. I don't mind any format as long as you get the numeric days and months the RIGHT way around (so month as month name is best).

I’m sure someone will find sufficient video clips and whatnot online to deduce what’s taken place. I’m awaiting the day, as forecast by the pandemic, when no one has to set foot out of their house at all and get to a gig. We’ll just live stream it all on demand replay-style, and no one shall have to endure the post-show descriptions of some lunatic.

 

And as for getting the date format “correct,” I believe that’s why I started doing the thread titles (trying to come up with a consistent format) that way in the first place! To satisfy bloody non-Yankees! 

9 hours ago, 50footqueenie said:

Did I get the listing title right Paul?? 

 

I shall not comment, except that anyone can follow the format of previous thread titles. I wouldn't want to put anyone else off, so I hereby declare that everyone should just do whatever they please. This isn't a dictatorship, after all. Not to mention, I'm not going to make it to a bunch of shows on the upcoming U.S. tour anyway, so the inevitable will happen...

12 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta all.

I'm sure H.R.H. will barge in and complain about the thread naming not adhering to convention though (in his usual good-natured way so don't panic about it). 

 

EDIT: According to the online users list he may be very well creating a parallel thread as we speak unaware that you've nipped in first.

 

Oh, I'm VERY aware! You are a maniacal fellow, Tatlock, and you know me too well. H.R.H., though? Well, I say...how dare you?

Well it appears that the Mancunians on here have Wilcomania...at least relative to anywhere else on this tour! Welcome, all ye new and perhaps old posters who have chimed in about the gig at the Bridgewater Hall. All I ask, as your humble Via Chicago correspondent, is if you start a thread to discuss a show on here — and I don't mind at all if someone else other than me does it — please just stick to the titling convention of the other threads, so we can keep things consistent. Thank you (and mods, if you could please merge this thread and that other one.)

 

I shall endeavour to not lag too far behind in recaps for the next few shows, but travel challenges are definitely going to put a crimp in my energy level and connectivity, so please bear with me — and check back, if you're interested in my blatherings...

 

For now, here was the setlist, as played, for the gig at the Bridgewater Hall (I didn't glimpse the printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Hell Is Chrome

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

I'll Fight

Muzzle Of Bees

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Sunken Treasure

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

You And I (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

California Stars (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals, Sean Mullins on keyboards and Taylor Zachry and Shireen Lilith on percussion)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

From the time that the Proclaimers were forced to bow out of tonight's undercard slot on the main stage at this most pleasant of festivals and were replaced by none other than Billy Bragg, there was just one major question on everyone's mind leading up to Wilco's headlining performance: Would the collaborators on the much-beloved Mermaid Avenue project share the stage at any point and reprise one of the Woody Guthrie compositions they helped to complete and bring to the world? (Spoiler alert: They did.)

 

It was far from the first time that Wilco and Bragg have reunited on stage, of course. It seems to happen about once every six or seven years when they find themselves booked on the same festival lineup on the same day, most recently (I'm pretty sure) at the Newport Folk Festival on 29 July 2017 and then before that at one of the Rolling Stone Weekenders in Germany on 7 November 2009. Those were both on performances of California Stars. And before that, they frequently joined forces on several different Mermaid Avenue songs in the summer of 1998 on the traveling Guinness Fleadh festival when the first volume of the project was newly released. There have probably been a few other instances over the years as well.

 

Anyway, the thing with collaborations at festivals is that sometimes the ones that seem the most obvious don't end up happening for whatever reason. Maybe one artist or the other have to leave early, and there simply isn't time to squeeze anything in. Or inclement weather rears its ugly head and throws things into chaos. But once it became clear that none of those would be a preventing factor (and since we weren't going to all be bopping along to (I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles — much to the chagrin, I must admit — of your humble correspondent) it seemed like the Moseley Folk And Arts Festival audience wouldn't settle for anything but a feel-good sendoff with its two most prominent performers on the third and final day of this year's festivities.

 

Still, the crowd might have been getting a bit antsy when Bragg still hadn't reappeared with Wilco's 90-minute time slot winding down. Jeff had apparently spotted one of the festival's organizers near the front to his right a few songs earlier and had a funny little back-and-forth with him when Jeff thanked him for having the band at the festival and made a joke about how it was "sort of like your own private concert," to which the organizer replied that it "was an expensive ticket." That caused Jeff to crack a smile, and he said something like, "Well, I guess we better keep playing, then." Late in the set, after Jeff announced that he and his bandmates had two songs left, the organizer yelled out, "When's Billy coming back on stage?" Jeff had to reassure him, before launching into Falling Apart (Right Now): "OK,OK...it's gonna happen. Let's see how long it takes us to play this song..."

 

Finally, the time came for anticipated reunion. A relaxed and trim-looking Bragg reappeared with acoustic guitar in hand and Wilco began to play California Stars and for a few minutes, all was good with the world. We won't mention Bragg's lyrical stumble when he took the second verse on his own, as is the custom for most who guest on the song, but I think he immediately realized he had transposed some lyrics and turned to Jeff during the subsequent instrumental passage to express as much. Still, once it was over, Jeff hugged Billy and Billy hugged John and, if nothing else, once again assuaged the sense that there might be unresolved and irredeemable tension between collaborators who will forever be linked, whether they like it or not.

 

It was unquestionably a crowd-pleasing way to close out a long weekend of music and revelry, which included at least one extended interlude of old-fashioned folk dancing — some of which involved a wicker man of some sort as well as copious amounts of hay being thrown about — that had to be seen to be believed. The quaint three-day festival took place in a picturesque park about two and a half miles south of Birmingham city centre, and sort of had a Pickathon spirit and ethos about it (if anyone has ever been to that delightful festival outside of Portland, Ore.)

 

I'm not 100 percent sure, but this might have been Wilco's first-ever performance in this part of the country (West Midlands) as well. Jeff alluded to that in one of his only visits to Banter Corner when he said, "What a great night, and a great thing to be part of. Thanks for inviting us. I don't think we've ever been here before. I could be wrong. It happens all the time." He added that it had happened to him recently and joked that "I was in my own house." Certainly it seemed like there were more than a few people who had come to Moseley Park specifically to see Wilco, judging by the smattering of band T-shirts I observed (shout out to Mark from the Manchester area, who it was nice to see again) and the people who staked out their positions near the front of the stage as early as the start of Bragg's own set.

 

Unfortunately, there were also more weirdos than you might have expected in the crowd on the Sunday of a relatively sedate English folk festival. For instance, a drunken couple barged their way right behind the front row in the middle and caused a bit of a ruckus for a few songs before they thankfully stumbled off again. And I will scarcely mention the guy next to me (who I don't even think was a Brit) but with whom I engaged in a passive-aggressive leaning contest for a good part of Wilco's set because he had to stand directly behind his partner, apparently, and didn't have a concept of personal space.

 

I guess it was ultimately somewhat comforting to know that the usual crowd shenanigans that happen at home in America also take place over here as well. People are the same everywhere, for better and worse. If we would just all embrace love a little more, I'm sure things would be perfect, right? Take it from Jeff who, when a fan yelled out, "I love you, Jeff!" replied, "I'm not afraid to say I love you, too. I'm not like Doja Cat."

 

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

 

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I'll Fight

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars (w/Billy Bragg on vocals and acoustic guitar)

10 hours ago, oecourt said:

FWIW, Courtney Marie Andrews did not share the mic with Jeff on California Stars at this show.

Will upload my recording soon on Dime, make sure to check the pics of that beautiful location.

 

Thanks for the info/confirmation on that!

Having experienced something of what tour life can be like, sometimes I think it would be fascinating to work for a booking agency or pick the brain (and get honest responses) from someone whose job it is to figure out things like tour routing and why performers seem to play certain cities or venues all the time, while others seemingly get passed over with regularity. I'm sure there are logical answers for these things most times — and they're often obvious — but sometimes there aren't. At any rate, being American, I think I understand these things better in my own country and I don't pretend to understand the vagaries of touring economics in other lands and yet I'm sure there are some similarities.

 

All of which is to say, how is it possible that Wilco had never played a show in Edinburgh before tonight?

 

OK, Jeff did play a solo show here not too long ago and the Autumn Defense apparently performed at a tiny venue once. Yet a bit of Internet research, as well as consultation with selected locals, confirmed that the flagship entity known as Wilco apparently never have. Having been a touring band for nearly 30 years now, and having gone through all of the various cycles — from support act to It Band, from alternative-country standard-bearers to darlings of the indie scene, from folk-festival stars to headlining American rock act — you would have figured that somewhere along the way, Jeff and his bandmates would have had a concert in this culturally rich and picturesque city. But alas, it appears that's yet another reason that some people from these parts seem to hold a particular grudge against their western rivals from Glasgow, home of the dreaded Weegies: They get all (or most) of the good gigs!

 

As with the touring economics, I'm sure there's actually a lot I don't understand about the Edinburgh-Glasgow rivalry — is it a bit like Boston and New York? — but I can say with some certainty that this show at the esteemed Usher Hall was not interrupted by any sort of fisticuffs the way at least a couple of previous Wilco gigs in Glasgow were apparently. Rather, judging by the utterly enthusiastic reception Wilco got from the approximately 2,900 (a near-sellout, as I understand) who filled Usher Hall on a Saturday night, there was more concern about selling enough tickets and giving the band a warm-enough reception that Jeff and Co. would want to return sooner than later.

 

Curiously, Jeff didn't mention anything about it being the full band's first-ever Edinburgh gig. Possibly because, as I mentioned, he had played here solo a few years ago and he didn't realize that the band never had. Or it just slipped his mind, though usually he's pretty on top of a fact like that. Prior to starting the encore, he did touch upon the prize, or gift, that someone gave him and his wife during the Tweedy Show which apparently proclaimed them to be the lord and lady of a square foot of Scottish soil or something like that. "You're the  best," Jeff told the Usher Hall crowd. "I'm not sure if that's because I'm royalty," before explaining his lordship and going onto joke that the compliment "means even more coming from me because I don't like most audiences."

 

Visits to Banter Corner were pretty limited once again tonight — at one point, Jeff even admitted, "I don't know what to say...I'm speechless" — though he did share that, "We feel very, very at home (here), so thank you," and had couple of other very brief back-and-forths with audience members (though not with the crazed local in the front row who kept shouting “Scotland!” Oh, I might know that guy. Haha.) Jeff also joked about Nels after his usual standout Impossible Germany solo, pointing in his direction and quipping, "The worst part is he's a super, super sweet person. That's the worst part."

 

On at least a couple of occasions, when someone in the crowd yelled something at Jeff, he said he couldn't really hear them ("but it sounded positive," he joked) and it's true that the acoustics in the Usher Hall were a bit weird. The best way I can think to describe it is boomy, but I'm hardly an acoustics expert. The Usher Hall, I'm told, is usually used for classical music and it typically has an orchestra section with seats on the main floor — which were all removed for this show, making it all standing room. There are also two circular balcony levels, so the overall room is quite tall and it shares that boomy acoustic issue with other orchestral rooms like that I've been in for rock concerts. Not that the sound for Wilco's performance was bad by any means, just that the acoustics of the venue could be a bit odd at times.

 

As far as the setlist goes, there wasn't too much variation if you've been following along recently, although I'm Always In Love was a nice surprise. I'm pretty sure Jeff flubbed one of the lyrics, saying "...will I catch the sun," instead of "the moon," but no one seemed to notice, and that song led nicely into the lively main set-closing pair of Heavy Metal Drummer and A Shot In The Arm. We also got lovely reprises of support act Courtney Marie Andrews' guest turns on both You And I and California Stars, as she had done in the encore in both London and Utrecht.

 

After another rousing Spiders (Kidsmoke), which got the Edinburghians — and, let's be honest, probably some Weegies, and I think at least one Brit (shoutout to longtime reader Ghost Of Bob Cumming, who introduced himself after the show) — all ba-ba-ba-ba-ing and clapping together, if just briefly, Jeff and the other Wilcos gave their appreciative farewell waves once more before disappearing into the bowels of the House of Usher (sorry, couldn't resist). Seriously, though, I think the local audience gave a good accounting of itself and though, as we've established, who exactly knows why bands ultimately play where they do, this gig certainly demonstrated that there's ample reason for Wilco to get back here before another quarter century goes by.

 

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

 

Hell Is Chrome

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

I'll Fight

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

I'm Always In Love

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

You And I (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

California Stars (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

More housekeeping from (hopefully) the last date on this European run that I couldn't make it to in person. I've actually been to the End Of The Road festival before, when Jeff played solo a few years back, and really enjoyed it. But since they don't sell daily tickets, it's basically impossible to catch just one day of the festival. Which is fine, since it's kind of a big commitment to getting out there and camping out for four days...even though the music lineups and other programming are usually excellent.

 

Anyway, Wilco headlined the main Woods stage on the first night of the festival (preceded by old friends Deerhoof, which I'm sure made it fun for Jeff and Co.) for a 90-minute set from 9:15-10:45 p.m.

 

According to the good folks at Wilcoworld, this was the setlist as played:

 

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

The 30th of August 2023...this will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, it will soon see the end of the Rebellion. Wait, that's not right. The 30th of August 2023...a date which will live in infamy. Yikes, nothing anywhere near that dire. The 30th of August 2023...another Wilco Wednesday, the band's first show in the British capital in more than four years and another pivot point as Jeff and his bandmates head into the home stretch of this current European tour. OK, I think we finally got it.

 

Oh, and it might also have been the 46th anniversary of the arrival on this mortal coil of a certain humble correspondent (but more on that later)...

 

Anyway, I always sort of forget that Wilco hadn't really toured in the UK behind Cruel Country until now with the exception of one scant festival date last year. I suppose that among the places the band has previously toured, Australia/New Zealand/Japan also has a valid gripe, but really, it's a bit hard to believe that with another record set to come out in a month's time, Cruel Country hadn’t gotten any more than a brief spotlight in probably the biggest market outside the US of A.

 

There are, of course, positives and negatives to having had to wait so long. On the plus side, I think the version of the peculiar and thrilling jam Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull has never sounded better than now. It seems like Pat and Nels have really meshed their guitar parts, with Pat shining on lead, and Glenn's drumming has gone a new level, propelling the song along with it. In addition, Falling Apart (Right Now) as the anchor of the encore most nights has become a fun romp and a nice showcase for Pat with his B-Bender Telecaster. On the flip side, other fine Cruel Country numbers such as All Across The World, Hearts Hard To Find and Many Worlds have dropped off the setlist entirely on this run.

 

In London, we got a setlist that pretty closely mirrored one from a couple of days earlier in Utrecht with a reprise of the Hell Is Chrome opener as well as other relative rarities such as I'll Fight and Side With The Seeds. Impossible Germany was another highlight, with Nels really stretching out his solo to the delight of most of the audience. I'll always remember seeing IG in London circa 2009 and it being still fresh enough that you could feel the emotion swelling up inside you when the song reached its climax when Jeff and Pat's guitars rejoin the arrangement and the parts all fit together. Though I've heard it hundreds of times since then, I'm still awed by how Nels can take his part in a different direction every night and create something new. Afterward, as the crowd was giving him his due, Jeff looked over at him and quipped, "Exactly how it was written. You did really good."

 

Another highlight came in the encore when, as on Night 2 in Utrecht, support act Courtney Marie Andrews came back out and duetted with Jeff on You And I and then remained on stage for California Stars. Tonight, Andrews was joined not only by her bandmates Sean Mullins and Taylor Zachry on percussion — tambourines this time, in addition to the shakers they used in Utrecht — but also by surprise guest Macie Stewart of Finom and the Tweedy band. Stewart, who is about to kick off a short European tour in support of her excellent solo record Mouth Full Of Glass, and Andrews shared one microphone and joined forces for the second verse of the Woody Guthrie-penned crowd pleaser.

 

By the time Jeff managed to get the London audience to actually clap somewhat in time on the subsequent, show-closing Spiders (Kidsmoke) — though Glenn seemed somewhat dubious — and even sing the ba-ba-ba-ba-ba riff a couple of times, Wilco had shown that it could still deliver the rock 'n' roll goods. Even with Jeff struggling noticeably with his hip pain when he walked on and off stage and occasionally sneaking in a stretch or two, the band powered through and sent the audience home on a resounding note and right at the 11 p.m. curfew.

 

Banter Corner was a pretty lonely place on this evening, with Jeff saying next to nothing during the first half of the show except for a brief deadpanned comment after someone yelled out something or other: "This is the part of the show I enjoy, when I get to speak to some of you individually, one at a time." Before the start of the encore, he also joked about how when he and his bandmates returned to the stage, one of their crew members said to them, "I knew it." As Jeff replied jokingly, "That's how that works."

 

On a final note, I must say a sincere thank you to Jeff for the birthday gift he tossed my way after Hummingbird. Normally I wouldn't share that private gesture but since Jeff, of course, took a few seconds a little later in the set to point out that it was indeed my birthday and hang the usual "he's gone to more shows than we've played" identifier around my neck, I feel as if I can say a few words about it here. Jeff shared with the rest of the audience  — spoiler alert — that he had given me "the lamest present in the world. I gave him my (new) book." Then a few songs later, he qualified his statement by saying that the book wasn't out yet, so that was pretty cool. And Jeff added that he also signed it, which he said "makes it worth less. If you ever spot a copy of anything I've ever put out in the world and it's not signed, snag it." I'm more than happy to have it, signed or unsigned, and probably just as glad it didn't also come with any group singing of that birthday song. You know the one.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Kentish Town (I didn't get a glimpse at a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Hell Is Chrome

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

I'll Fight

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

You And I (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

California Stars (w/Courtney Marie Andrews and Macie Stewart on vocals and Sean Mullins and Taylor Zachry on percussion)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

3 hours ago, Marijn said:

The Jeff-Nels interaction you mentioned actually started before the song, with Jeff hitting a completely different (rather false) opening chord and teasingly telling Nels “I changed that song… just now”. Then, after the song, someone in the audience yelled “NELS F’ING CLINE!”, hence the middle name joke.

 

Regarding your first paragraph, the TivoliVredenburg website (still) notes: “Let op: Wilco speelt op deze avonden twee verschillende sets!”, which translated as “Please note: Wilco will be playing two different sets on these nights”. In hindsight technically correct, of course, but it did result in a somewhat tame and sedated crowd.
 

Anyway, great to see that the Wilco extended family enjoyed their stay in Utrecht – which in my humble opinion is a way more superior city compared to the tourist hellhole that Amsterdam has become in recent years. But be forewarned, never call Utrecht a “lovely little town” in front of her residents, or you might actually end up with some (friendly) “boooooooos” instead of “uuuuuuuuus” – go ask Courtney Marie 😄

Ah, right! Thanks for filling in the blanks for me there. And to bring it kinda full circle, Nels’ actual middle name is Courtney! 

53 minutes ago, Marijn said:

Some context for those who are confused about the “Uuuuuuu” jokes 😄

 Yes! Thank youuuuu for sharing! 

With this pair of shows in Utrecht being the lone two-night stand of this European tour, there was at least some conjecture among some of the people attending both gigs about exactly what to expect. I seemed to remember there being something about no repeated songs at some point in the fine print of a tour dates advert/listing — perhaps when ticket sales for the Sunday/Monday shows had been a bit sluggish? — and some of my colleagues recalled reading a similar promise on the TivoliVredenburg Web site.

 

So after we successfully negotiated a rather disorganized queue, followed a few locals through a “secret” door into the Ronda venue and secured our spots at the front, all there was to do (after watching another delightful support set by Courtney Marie Andrews) was wait for the lights to go down on Night 2 and see what Jeff and his Wilco bandmates had up their collective sleeves. When the band began to play the opening chords to Hell Is Chrome — which, coincidentally, was one of the songs my front-row mate most wanted to hear and which I pooh-poohed as being unlikely — things looked extremely promising for a set with some real rarities. It was the first time Wilco had played the song in more than four years, since a handful of performances in 2019; before that, it hadn't been since one of the Winter Residency shows in 2014.

 

We knew by the third song of the set, when Jeff began strumming the plaintive intro to I Am My Mother and followed it up as usual with Cruel Country, that this wouldn't be a completely fresh batch of songs relative to Night 1. But since we were never really sure what had been promised (or promised and reneged, or just a figment of our imaginations), it wasn't really all that disappointing to hear some tunes that have become recent setlist staples — and there were still a few surprises yet to come.

 

"How many of you were here last night?"  Jeff asked the audience in his first real comments of the evening, to a smattering of applause. "OK, not too many. We tried to change it up a little bit." When one fan subsequently yelled out, "We love you, Wilco!" Jeff replied, "Doja Cat says she doesn't love people who say they love her...just one of the many ways we're not alike."

 

One repeat that I didn't mind hearing came in the encore when, for the second straight night, Andrews joined Wilco on vocals. She has sung the song with the band at least a handful of times now, but tonight she seemed to finally hit her comfort zone with it. She took the second verse on her own, and it was nice to see her smile as she finally nailed the tricky cadences of the lyrics as well as watched her bandmates Sean Mullins and Taylor Zachry join on shakers behind Glenn for presumably the first time. Then Jeff invited Andrews to stay for one more song, and the two of them sang a nice duet on You And I.

 

A couple of people pointed out to me afterward that Jeff, who had been relatively chatty on Night 1, seemed like he might have been a bit talked out on Night 2. True, he didn't gab with the audience nearly as frequently as he did the previous night. But that might have also been a product of a somewhat more sedate Monday night crowd as well. There just weren't as many people yelling random things for Jeff to react to.

 

One funny moment came after Jeff, as he had the night before, back introduced Evicted by saying it was a song off an album that's coming out next month. A guy loudly stated that the album was called Cousin, I guess indicating he knew that fact. "That's right, Cousin," Jeff said. "Are you my fact-checking cuz?" It was almost the exactly the same back-and-forth that Jeff had with a guy the night before, standing in nearly the same spot, causing Jeff to ask if it was indeed the same guy. The Night 2 guy then shared that he hadn't been at the previous night's show, but had in fact been watching The Bear. The "conversation" continued somewhat awkwardly until Jeff finally put it to bed by joking, "Well, I'm glad we had time to have this talk. It's been very cheerful." You probably had to be there.

 

Other than that, the visits to Banter Corner were pretty minimal. Midway through the set, Jeff did briefly mention the Utrechtian local chant again — see previous show recap — and thanked the audience for inviting the band to come back again. "We love it here, even if we do have some post-traumatic stress from a night seven years ago," Jeff said. "But it's getting better." And there was a Jeff-Nels interaction I didn't completely get when Jeff pointed in Nels' direction after Impossible Germany (as he usually does) to honor Nels' solo and Nels came over and gave Jeff a sweet little hug. Then Jeff said something to Nels about not knowing "that was your middle name," and Nels responding it was on his passport. I feel like I missed part of that conversation.

 

Anyway, despite about half the set being the same as Night 1 and shattering our (probably delusional) expectations about there being no repeats, this was still a fun night that saw some fantastic renditions of songs we don't always get to hear anymore like I'll Fight and Side With The Seeds. And you know, when you get a Monday on Monday to close things out, especially with an Outtasite (Outta Mind) tacked on as it should be, you can't ever walk out on a down note. So viva Utrecht, or rather "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

 

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

 

Hell Is Chrome

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

I'll Fight

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Evicted

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals and Sean Mullins and Taylor Zachry on percussion)

You And I (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

7 hours ago, lost highway said:

 

Oh yeah, was it double time finger picky solo style version, or og slow jam?

 

Jeff on acoustic, no harmonica. I guess it was more the OG slow jam. FYI, they did play it a couple times in Spain, so it wasn't a tour debut or anything.

Night One of a two-night stand within the familiar confines of the sprawling TivoliVredenburg complex in Utrecht meant a return to normalcy in many ways for Wilco and its crew. After a couple of weeks of mostly outdoor gigs with unpredictable weather conditions in countries where English wasn't the first language and little things like styles of coffee and cooling systems were just a little different than what we are used to in the good ol' US of A, being back in this charming Dutch city that the band has played in a number of times over the years felt like a welcome return to a home away from home.

 

Not that the familiarity led to a ho-hum performance in any way, and actually the band is playing in a room this time — the more rock-oriented Ronda — that it had only played in once before (more on that later). I was told that the band not playing in the wood-paneled, cavernous and "Imperial Senate"-like (as Jeff has previously dubbed it) Grote Zaal had nothing to do with the Oude Muziek (Early Music) Festival that is simultaneously taking place at the Tivoli and which made for the amusing (at least to me) sight of a gaggle of grey-haired groupies (Australian Carillon Society, ftw!) exiting one of those performances into the lobby, where they ran headlong into the only slightly lesser-grey haired audience trying to make its way into the Wilco gig. Anyway, apparently the promoter of the Wilco shows simply felt that the Ronda is the venue in the Tivoli most suited for a rock concert.

 

Who knows how much, if any, of this was going through Jeff's mind when he seemed to be a bit addled just two songs into the show? He started to instinctively strum the opening chords to I Am My Mother, as that would usually be the song played in that spot in the set. However, he quickly stopped himself in short order and said sheepishly, "That's not right; I know what I want to play." Then he switched over to the chords to The Universe, but promptly stopped again as if he couldn't remember them. "One more time," he said, starting again but clearly struggling his way through the lyrics of the first verse before finally getting on track.

 

He mumbled a quick explanation in the moment about how the band had been playing a lot of festivals lately, blah blah. But of course, you knew that in his mind he was probably going to come back to it a few songs later and offer a more detailed explanation because, as he explained, "That's the type of performer I am." It made for a good visit to Banter Corner, as he joked about how he had messed up because "you guys were too fucking exciting for me," and that he had forgotten that he had decided to put a quieter song into the set early on and was thrown when the audience was so into it (presumably because they usually aren't at most festivals). "I know you come to see Wilco because of our infallibility," Jeff continued. "Well you're gonna get it, if it takes all night."

 

Actually the jaunts to Banter Corner had begun a little earlier when someone yelled out a request for California Stars. Jeff smiled and joked that normally the band would ask that the requester go through the proper channels and fill out the form on its Web site for requests, "but we'll see what we can do. We're here to please." (It must be nice when a request is for a song that's going to be played anyway, which this was in the encore with some vocal assistance by support act Courtney Marie Andrews.) Jeff also segued from that bit into a story that I hadn't heard before, despite the band having played in Utrecht on a few other occasions, about there being signs hanging backstage informing artists that audiences might make a "Uuuuuuu" sound whilst holding up a hand cupped in the shape of a U that could be interpreted as booing but was actually just a version of a local chant that was actually a positive sign. Did it have to do with football or some other sport? It wasn't clear, though it certainly continued to be a recurring theme of the show from that point on.

 

Overall, Jeff seemed to be in good spirits and quite effusive overall. As I mentioned, maybe that just had to do with the relative freedom of being able to speak in a language that most of the audience seemed likely to understand. Along with that went more of a willingness to engage with the crowd. So that when one person wished him a happy birthday, he replied, "My birthday was...a few days ago. So we shall not speak of it (anymore)." When someone else joked about Jeff being 44, he said drily, "They don't have Google here, I guess." After Evicted, when Jeff announced that song would be on album that comes out next month, someone in the crowd couldn't help but make it known that he knew the album was called Cousin, to which Jeff shot back, "That's right. Thanks for reminding me. You're my fact-checking cuz."

 

Another very amusing bit came when someone else in the audience yelled out, unsolicited, "We love Jane Kotche!" I'm sure it was an honest mistake, something about the Dutch pronunciation of G versus J or something like that, but it did definitely sound like he said Jane. Jeff, of course, couldn't let that one go by without turning to Glenn and giving him a little brotherly ribbing. Then he corrected the man, saying "That's Glenn Kotche. But don't you love all of us? It's not fair to single one person out." Then Jeff joked that maybe this was the kind of audience in which "you individually could tell us how you feel. Let's start over (on the far side of the room)."

 

I mentioned earlier that the band had played in the Ronda once before, and it was a memorable night for the wrong reasons. It came on Nov. 9, 2016, which just happened to be the day after we all learned that Donald Trump had shockingly won the U.S. presidential election. Someone brought up the memory tonight, and Jeff said he certainly remembered it but suggested that was then and "now he's facing four indictments on 91 counts, and that's something, right? That has to be progress." That remains to be seen, I suppose, but Jeff certainly didn't hide his feelings, adding almost under his breath, "Fuck that guy...what a piece of shit."

 

Then, as now, it was ultimately about music and catharsis. "Music is my savior," Jeff sang in Sunken Treasure. "It's not the same without rock 'n' roll." Indeed, being back on familiar ground reminded us of that, and I'd say this was an audience (special shoutout to some of my Euro pals and loyal VCers in attendance, including the esteemed Marijn aka Marinus J. Akerboom; samuel_70 aka the Muscles From Brussels; and of course, 50footqueenie aka Iain-who-is-no-longer-a-Euro-but-is-a-Master-Of-Culture) that was happy to accept what Wilco had to offer in the moment, looking ahead to a hopefully better future. Or at least some more catharsis on Night 2.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 in Utrecht (didn't see a printed list, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Handshake Drugs

The Universe

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Whole Love

Mystery Binds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Sunken Treasure

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Everyone Hides

Heavy Metal Drummer

The Late Greats

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars (w/Courtney Marie Andrews on vocals)

Box Full Of Letters

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Happy birthday to Jeff, who probably didn't get the Shroud of Turin for his 56th birthday, but maybe the Shroud of Tweedy instead? At any rate, this second of two Italian dates on this 2023 European run was apparently more of a festival in the traditional sense, with Wilco headlining the main music space on the first day of the three-day TOdays Festival. Jeff and Co. played about 90 minutes, it seems, beginning at 22:30 and preceded by King Hannah, Les Savy Fav and Warhaus.

 

Once again, hat tip to the Wilcoworld authorities for the setlist:

 

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Hummingbird

Random Name Generator

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Falling Apart (Right Now)

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)>

Outtamind (Outtasite)

Just doing the usual housekeeping here, since Italy wasn't in the cards for me on this run. This was, from what I can tell, not a festival in the usual sense of a multi-day event with numerous bands, but rather a seasonal series of concerts organized at the same venue (and presumably with the same promoter(s)). It was also the first show of Wilco's current tour with support from Courtney Marie Andrews, who has joined the band on vocals for California Stars in the past but I'm not sure if she did at this show or not.

 

At any rate, I am as usual borrowing the setlist from the good folks at Wilcoworld. However, on this occasion, another source that seems to be based on the printed list indicates that a few more songs were played at the end of the set than is currently reported by Wilcoworld, which seems plausible to me so I am including them here (that source also indicates that Red-Eyed And Blue was on the printed list but wasn't played):

 

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Misunderstood

Evicted

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Hummingbird

Side With The Seeds

Random Name Generator

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

46 minutes ago, tinnitus photography said:

punk albums i consider great. maybe some of these are considered hardcore? 

The Damned - Damned Damned Damned
The Sex Pistols - Bollocks (yeah that entire band/scene comes with a lot of baggage but the record still holds up)

Ramones - S/T
The Ruts - The Crack
The Adverts - Crossing The Red Sea
Black Flag - My War 
Dead Kennedy - Fresh Fruit
The Clash - S/T (American version, sorry! "Complete Control" is a face ripper!)
The Adolescents - S/T
Circle Jerks - Group Sex
The Avengers - S/T
Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material

 

See what you started, Tatlock? 

 

Also, it just dawned on me that Wilco totally missed the opportunity to play Someone To Lose. 

1 hour ago, Albert Tatlock said:

I report of that stature deserves more than a 'ta' but I am nothing if not consistent.

 

Also, just because it is great

 

Well, I thank you for your consistent tas because a ta a day keeps the doctor away.

 

And as for that clip, boy that’s a Tatlock jam now isn’t it? Those crunchy guiTArs and all! I only wish I had had time to visit a casino whilst having run low on funds and also listening to Beck…because then I could have been a loser who had nothing to lose in Toulouse.   
 

But since we’re on the punk tip, I offer you another great one

 

 

Maybe it took a show in a different country (sorry, Spaniards), or an intimate, indoor concert after a run of festival-like outdoor performances, or a relatively low-stakes Tuesday night gig that didn't even come close to selling out, but whatever the reason, Wilco finally got around to playing Evicted as a band for the first time tonight. There was some question of whether they would perform anything off the forthcoming Cousin before the record officially drops next month, but given that Jeff has been playing the song at his solo shows for a while now and and that the Tweedy Show sort of reset the bar for sharing new material before its formal release, I suppose you could always argue these days that there's no time like the present.

 

That was probably the Big Takeaway from the band's one and only French show this year, which took place in a suburb (or is it a commune?) of Toulouse, in southwestern France. I wish I had gotten to see more of Toulouse proper because it seems like a lovely city, but since it wasn't super easy to get there from far northwestern Spain, I ended up enduring the dreaded RyanAir with a connection through London Stansted before finally arriving into the fourth-most populous French city in the late afternoon. With the 10 p.m. or later set times I had become accustomed to in Spain, that wouldn't have been too much of an issue normally, but apparently they do things on a more "normal" schedule off the Iberian peninsula and so Wilco was scheduled to go on at 8:45 (with support from Tré Burt at 7:45) and that made it a bit of a time crunch to get to my hotel, grab a quick bite and get to the venue in time to not be too far back in the queue.

 

One thing that wasn't much different from most of other shows on this run so far was that it was absolutely sweltering both outside and inside Le Bikini, which is a strange but cool (not literally) venue tucked way in the back of this neighborhood that is comprised mostly of aerospace industry corporate parks. Seriously, it's the last place in the world you'd expect there to be a hip indie rock club, but apparently this Wilco show was one in a series celebrating the club's 40th year. The only negative was that there was virtually no air circulation inside the 1,500-capacity space, at least that anyone in the audience could probably feel (though I think the band had a few small fans on stage).

 

Wilco concert veterans will be familiar with the large digital clock with red display that's almost always set up at stage right. For the first time tonight, I realized that the room temperature is also displayed on that clock and I watched it throughout the show and it never went below 92 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe that's why there's a functioning swimming pool in the courtyard of the building that I'm sure bands probably take a dip in first chance they get after a show. I'm pretty sure John came out to hop in even before the venue had been completely cleared of audience members.

 

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is the show was pretty sweaty. You know it was pretty warm in there when Jeff came out in just a T-shirt and no jacket. For someone who I've seen wear a jacket of some sort in even the hottest outdoor conditions, this was pretty telling. (He also had a water bottle on stage, but didn't take even one sip during the show, though I guess that's more par for the course with him. Yet he asked later, in one of his audience check-ins, if it was "staying hyrdated.") Jeff got through about six songs before he finally made his first comment of the evening, joking that it was "nice to have a reunion with our fans in France. We play one show every four or five years and you all come out, so thank you."

 

Then Jeff noticed a little boy standing front and center, straining to peer over the rail. He probably spotted him being held in father's arms for a few songs earlier on, but the boy now stood on his own right in front of Jeff's mike and Jeff said hi to him. The boy, whose name was Georges, had a drawing he wanted to give to Jeff and with the help of some folks in the front row, finally managed to get it into Jeff's hands. Jeff thanked him, said "we're gonna hang this on the band fridge" and then took a closer look at it and read aloud the part that said George’s’ two favorite songs were Hummingbird and Kamera. "We're not gonna play either one; that's an early lesson in disappointment," Jeff deadpanned before launching into If I Ever Was A Child. "Now I'm gonna play a song about when I was your age."

 

Of course as anyone who has seen Jeff appear to deny a request before, he often gets back to it in short order. So it was that a couple of songs later, it was time for Hummingbird's place on the setlist. The only problem was that by then, Georges apparently needed a little break for some air and so he wasn't in his front-and-center spot when Jeff looked for him during the song. Afterward, Jeff inquired about the boy's whereabouts and was told that he had apparently been temporarily given a bird's-eye seat by a security guard at stage right. Even Georges’ (American, as we learned) mother wasn't entirely sure where he was, asking aloud with mild concern where her son was. Jeff heard her, and responded, "He's all right. He's probably got a beer."

 

After that little interlude, it was time for the full-band debut of Evicted. Of course it was a treat to finally hear live with the full-band arrangement. On first listen, I would say that it didn't sound all that different from the album version that's been released, but the guitars and guitar interplay were more vivid. It'll be interesting to hear the nuances of the song evolve as time goes on, but it's certainly still a work in progress live. In a brief chat after the show, John mentioned feeling like he had messed up a part in Evicted, but if he did, I couldn't tell what it was.

 

For his part, Jeff seemed to be feeling much better than at the final show in Spain two nights earlier. He might have winced a couple of times due to his hip, but otherwise seemed back to normal. And that included a couple more noteworthy visits to Banter Corner in the second half of the set. One came when he spotted someone to his left wearing a T-shirt of the French prog band Magma and complimented them on it, then turned back to his right and complimented someone else sporting a T-shirt of the American avant-garde band Horse Lords, saying that they are "the best band" and looking back at the Magma shirt and adding that "they were the best band." Then someone else yelled out, "I have a Wilco shirt." To which Jeff drily responded, "How typical." The other funny bit came before the start of the encore when Jeff thanked support act Tré Burt and also said "merci beaucoup" to the crowd. He explained that he wished he knew how to say more, but he had gotten kicked out of his French class when he was in school because "my teacher said I was oversexed. I still don't know what that means, but he was wrong."

 

I have to say, other than the cauldron-like conditions, it was nice to see a proper indoor club show again. These are just the kinds of venues WIlco doesn't often play in the United States anymore, but because it was a summer Tuesday in southwestern France when a lot of people were probably still on holiday — a friend estimated that the venue was only maybe two-thirds full — it just felt like a familiar gig in the best possible way. Good crowd (shout out to Steve and Alice from Iowa, and to Georges and his French and American parents) and relaxed band made for a nice, if not entirely regular, meeting of the French Wilco legion.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, at Le Bikini (I only caught a brief glimpse of the printed list, which had the final song listed as "Spiders or rock block," but I can't say if there were any other changes or omissions):

 

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Muzzle Of Bees

If I Ever Was A Child

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Hummingbird

Evicted

Impossible Germany

Sunken Treasure

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

A Lifetime To Find

Spiders (Kidsmoke)