bböp

Honestly I'm not really sure how to report on this show except that it was, well, weird. Not that the vast majority of the attendees probably noticed anything super out of the ordinary, but this is where if you've seen the band more than a handful of times, you could probably tell that something was up. And if you've seen Jeff and Co. as much as this correspondent has, well, you pretty much know that things aren't quite right.

 

The first clue was that Jeff came out wearing his Daniel Johnston baseball cap and kept it firmly on his head throughout the night, except when doffing it to the crowd a few times. (He never wears a baseball cap during a show, or almost never.) Then at one point, probably after Jeff said something about keeping the lights low, it occurred to me that the lights were indeed unusually low. (You can see the band OK, but even from the front row, it could be tough to see them very clearly.) Oh, and is Jeff not really playing guitar with the level of conviction that he had just a couple of days earlier in Alicante? (Trust me that the shred level was rather muted.) And then the band was done after just one hour, 48 minutes when it clearly had time to play a bit longer (Only the bare minimum of songs off Cruel Country were played, and only one real outlier that hadn't been part of the standard setlist for this tour in Kamera.)

 

OK, you could maybe say that this was just a "professional show," the kind that happens when a band has been on tour for a while and for whatever reason, everyone is just a little tired or it's a kind of a ho-hum venue or audience and they just kind of get through it. But no, it didn't feel like that either. That's when my friend, who's seen enough gigs to know, mentioned that Jeff might be having or had a migraine. Of course! Dense me took like half the show to realize it, and I have absolutely no inside knowledge or confirmation, but I'd be willing to bet that was the case. In which case, poor Jeff (as if he doesn't have enough to deal with already with his hip, which another friend noticed he seemed to be favoring more tonight).

 

And, if true, it's really too bad it happened here at the band's final show in Spain on this run and at a rare appearance in Galicia. As Jeff noted, it was a beautiful night for a show — after a week of sweltering conditions in the south, the conditions were cool and clear — and the venue was the grounds of a beautiful pazo, or Galician manor house, that made it feel like the band was playing a country wedding or something.

 

Additionally, the crowd seemed primed to embrace the band. Before the show, I counted more Wilco T-shirts, and in different styles, than I can ever remember seeing at an overseas gig. And according to one local newspaper report, 3,500 advance tickets were sold, which I think would have been more than any other non-festival show on the tour thus far. All in all, it seemed like a pretty impressive turnout, even though most attendees had to jump through the added hoop of parking off-site in an industrial area more than a couple of miles away and taking shuttle buses to and from the venue.

 

That audience, however, proved to be perhaps a little less than perfect in some respects. Whether or not it had to do with Jeff or his bandmates' somewhat muted energy level or if a bigger portion of the crowd was there simply to enjoy a social evening in a nice setting, the attendees never really seemed to get together in that great Spanish way with the "olé, olé, olé" chants that the band seems to love so much or even just in a collective mass of enthusiasm. Instead, Jeff — in his longest comments of the evening — had to single out and admonish someone fairly close to the front to his right who was apparently being a little too rambunctious. Before The Late Greats, Jeff pointed in that direction and said, "Hey you, you need to settle down. You're hurting people. ... We're all here to have a good time, and nobody has a good time when someone's jumping on their back. Well, I guess it depends." Jeff graciously, but firmly told the person to either settle down or leave and come back when they had.

 

It wasn't the only visit to Banter Corner, but certainly the most memorable. Other bits included a mention of the Spanish women's national soccer team — and I say, muchas felicidades a la Roja! — winning the World Cup earlier in the day. Jeff noted that he had also been in Spain on a solo tour when the men's national team last won the global trophy, so "if you want to win the World Cup, you need to invite me." He also had a weird, but amusing little line when he prefaced Heavy Metral Drummer by saying it was a song off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. "I don't think I've ever introduced it that way before, but that's a fuckin' fact."

 

Musically, the show went mostly fine — and frankly, if Jeff was indeed battling a migraine, that is pretty impressive that he could still perform as well as he did. The only real noticeable flub came on the second pass through California Stars when Jeff transposed one of the lyrics, as he sometimes does. Unfortunately it came when John was coming in with the harmony vocals and Jeff had to drop out and then apologized to John in the break before they picked up the next verse.

 

It probably wasn't exactly the Spanish sendoff that Jeff and his bandmates would have preferred — something tells me that would have been along the lines of a rousing "ba ba ba ba" Spiders singalong, fading into an "olé, olé, olé" chant that sent them off into the Galician gloaming — but given everything, it all worked out as well as it probably could have.

 

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

 

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Kamera

If I Ever Was A Child

Whole Love

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

Red-Eyed And Blue>

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

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

I wasn't able to make it to Wilco's lone 2023 date in Portugal after all, but it looks like they had about a 75-minute slot on the Vodafone stage from 11 p.m.-12:30 a.m., just before Day 4 headliner Lorde closed out the four-day festival. By all means, please chime in if anyone was there and has any details or observations to add.

 

Fortunately, the good folks at Wilcoworld have provided the following setlist report:

 

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

Handshake Drugs

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Random Name Generator

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

6 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ts.

Now go and have a well earned Costa del Sol All Day English Breakfast with an extra portion of chips.

 

Wish I could, but I gotta catch (two) flights to Galicia! No rest for the harried correspondencia.

6 hours ago, TCP said:

I know the days of the band playing yet-to-be released songs is over but it's interesting that Evicted hasn't found it's way on the setlists yet.

 

Yeah, I think some of the more hardcore Spanish fans were hoping for at least that one. But Glenn or Nels, I forget who, said on a local Catalan news story about the band that they didn't plan to play any of the Cousin songs until the record was actually out.

 

To me, it's kind of funny that Jeff shared so many new, unreleased songs on the Tweedy Show, which I commented on at least once, but he said his stance at the time was, "Well, I don't know when — or if — I'll ever get to play them, so why not?" But since the pandemic times have ended and things have somewhat gone back to normal, that stance has also seemingly gone back to pre-pandemic times.

Well I guess at this point in Wilco's touring history, it wouldn't be a proper Spanish tour without a show in a bullfighting ring, right? And for good measure, they may as well be in relatively tertiary markets, too. Last year, the band played just such a gig in Murcia. This year's edition took place about an hour's drive away in the very steamy southern coastal city of Alicante, in a setting that was almost a carbon copy of the one from Murcia.

 

While I don't think you could describe this show as particularly well attended — if they sold more than 1,200 tickets, I'd be surprised — those that did turn out were particularly enthusiastic. It helped that the venue was divided into a few different zones, so that the most ardent fans probably bought tickets for the section closest to the stage and thus were all up close. And that made a difference as the show went along, both in terms of the audience interaction with and response to the band. By the end of the show, if not exactly to Hulk Hogan levels, Jeff was nevertheless actively soliciting the various "olé, olé, olé" chants and other cheers that would break out in the crowd, even lingering on stage a little longer than he ordinarily might.

 

"I can't get enough of that," he admitted before the start of the encore. "Any Americans here? We need to start that shit at home. That's appreciation, man."

 

That appreciation also came in physical form from a fan who had brought a small metallic replica of an old-school microphone to give to the band as a trophy of sorts and presented it to them via his young son who he had on his shoulders. (Incidentally, I guess at least more than one parent in the crowd had their kids aloft in some form because at one point Jeff looked out, smiled and joked, "Hold your children up, and I'll say hi to them.") Though the band has apparently stopped handing out nightly "best behaved" trophies to the audience as it did earlier this year, Jeff seemed genuinely touched by this "award" and after Nels informed him that this was the same fan who also had brought the band some pastries earlier in the day, Jeff thanked the man and his son for both, quipped that he always thought that more audiences should bring the band gifts and also clarified — for the record — that he, uh, hadn't confused the microphone trophy for a pastry.

 

That was certainly the longest visit to Banter Corner for the night, but not the only one — even though the language barrier is real, I guess. That caused Jeff to once again apologize for saying next to nothing for the first half of the set: "Sorry that I haven't said very much. I only know how to say gracias, but I mean it." A little later, after a fan yelled "Wilco for president!" Jeff ran with it a bit and replied, "Are we allowed to run here? OK, we're your new president. God help us all."

 

Really, though, if it was this crowd determining the result of an election, then Wilco could pretty much be assured of multiple terms. Even by Spanish standards, where the reaction to Jeff and his bandmates is seemingly positive almost everywhere, this Alicante audience just radiated pure adoration.

 

Musically that adoration really came out during the guitar workouts such as Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull and, of course, Impossible Germany. It's hard to imagine the latter, of course, ever not being an audience favorite here, and this one in particular seemed to be on the verge of singing the riff of the guitar part after Nels' solo where the other guitars come back in and start to play the counterpoint. As for the former, I have to say that the live performance of the Cruel Country cut has really taken off lately. With Glenn's drumming adding a propulsive element to the interplay between Pat and Nels' playing, the jam part of that tune really soars higher than I think it did a year ago when they were still getting a feel for the arrangement.

 

At the same time, it's been nice that the band has mixed in a few different older songs at each stop thus far in Spain. Tonight, for example, we got the tour debuts of Whole Love, Sunken Treasure and Dawned On Me (with Jeff of course calling a little attention to Nels' double-neck behemoth, as he usually does). The thought sometimes occurs to me at shows over here whether a song like Sunken Treasure that is a personal favorite will ever quite catch on to the level of an Impossible Germany, or if the sentiment is just a little too lyrically oblique.

 

I suppose that's a question that might never get answered definitively, at least in any kind of substantive way. Not that it really matters. On a sauna-like summer evening at the ol' bullring, I think Wilco could have played just about anything and this crowd would have been pretty cool with it (though hearing Spiders (Kidsmoke) live for the first time did make a perfect show capper for at least a couple of people that I know).

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (The Universe was listed as the first song of the encore on the printed setlist, but was replaced by Falling Apart (Right Now)):

 

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Hints

If I Ever Was A Child

Whole Love

Hummingbird

Sunken Treasure

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Random Name Generator

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

The Late Greats

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

2 hours ago, 50footqueenie said:

 

You're banned in Scotland!

 

Takes one to know one!

55 minutes ago, 50footqueenie said:

OMG the thought of you actually driving this side of the pond should have been made aware to the Spanish authorities!  

 

I drove in Iceland!

8 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

The boy is back in town.

Ta(pas)

 

Well, there ain't (de) nada otra persona apparently.

In the interest of full disclosure, until a few weeks ago, I completely intended to skip tonight's show at the scenic Starlite Occident complex in the hills above Marbella. There were several reasons for that, including the odd routing of this gig vis a vis the one before and the one after it as well as the advance word I had received from my local sources about the general vibe of this concert series, but ultimately I'm glad I was able to make the little bit of extra effort required to get there.

 

A little peek behind the curtain, perhaps, but typically I don't like to rent cars while traveling to shows in Europe and, amazingly, this was the first time I've ever had to do it. I mean, technically you can get to Starlite other ways (train/bus/taxi), but it would be pretty difficult — especially to get back to wherever you're staying after the show (which ended at midnight). So I rented a car and drove over from Malaga, about 45 minutes away, because it's also not the easiest thing to reach the renowned Costa del Sol city of Marbella via public transit. To get to Starlite, you exit the highway and wind your way uphill through these narrow streets on a drive that isn't unlike the one you take to reach the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles through Griffith Park if anyone has ever done that. Finally you reach a lot where you park and then catch a shuttle bus further up the hill and walk up a few more flights of stairs until you finally reach the entrance of the venue.

 

Said venue has two main areas, an outer section with several sit-down restaurants, various boutiques, bars, food stalls and a small stage, where you could easily spend the entire evening probably without even realizing there was a show going on inside the "auditorium," which is located on the other side of this huge grandstand (atop which there was naturally a VIP section of seating). Once inside the concert area, there were typical rows of seats as well as elevated platforms on either side of the stage. The stage was flanked by giant boulders that were almost reminiscent of Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, so it was definitely a picturesque locale, which Jeff noted during the 1-hour, 50-minute set.

 

"Do you like the mountains? We brought them with us," Jeff said, attempting to make a joke. "When we told them what kind of set we wanted (with a drawing) on a napkin, they said it couldn't be done, but we made it happen."

 

Jeff made inroads with the audience almost from the start, admiring the Hawaiian(?) shirts of a group to his right who he thought might be three generations of a family (if I heard what he said correctly). "Congrats, you look great," Jeff said to them. Then to the rest of the crowd, he added, "Don't worry, I'll comment on all your outfits between songs. Look sharp." He also poked fun at himself a little later on, evoking Pigpen, when he said he felt "like I'm the only one with bugs flying around me. My hygiene might not be great." The local insect population might have also briefly preoccupied Jeff's mind at another point during the show when he said off-mike — but still audibly — that he was scared of something he thought resembled a "flying ant or a wasp."

 

Despite the entomological concerns, the show was actually surprisingly good despite the sense I had gotten from some local friends beforehand and just from observing with my own eyes once I arrived that this wasn't going to be the best setting for a rock concert. I had been told to expect a bit of a posh scene with many people who go no matter who is performing and are there as much to socialize or just have a night out while on holiday as for the music. (Apparently this series is also known for its affiliation with the actor Antonio Banderas and there are definitely red carpet-type possibilities in the arrival area depending on the performer and how much of a gala-like event they want to make it. Fortunately the proceeds apparently largely go to charity, and there wasn't much evidence of glitz and glamour for Wilco, though you could tell that the crowd was generally pretty well-heeled.)

 

It didn't seem like the type of audience that would be on its feet the whole time, and indeed, it wasn't. But I have to say that it was probably one of the few shows I can remember where the audience remained seated the majority of the time and yet the energy level didn't drag. Perhaps it was the outdoor setting on a lovely evening, or just the general energy of a crowd that — like most everywhere in Spain — seemed to just love the band, but it seemed like Jeff and his bandmates were having a good time on stage and the audience was just generally receptive to whatever they did.

 

When an extended standing ovation was given to Nels and the band after Impossible Germany, Jeff quipped that "they don't know how to celebrate us in the United States." "But," he quickly added, "whenever we come here, it feels like a bit much, I have to say." After offering a simple "muchos gracias" to another round of applause, he also apologized sheepishly for not being able to express more in Spanish: "I apologize that I don't know how to say more than that after all these years. I should know how to say more." Speaking of miscommunication, there was also a funny bit late in the show, where I think someone in the crowd yelled a request for I'll Fight and Jeff misheard it as the guy saying, unsolicited, "I'm fine," and attempted to make a joke about a frontman who forgets to check in with an audience but they all individually just express how they're doing anyway.

 

The language barrier might still be a bit of an issue, but some things just transcend that — like the "olé, olé, olé" chants that are by now an expected part of any Spanish show and which the band seems to really enjoy (tonight's came at the start of the encore when the band returned to the stage and was encouraged by some percussion by Glenn) or the singing riff part at the end of Spiders (Kidsmoke), which tonight was supplemented with a little double-time clapping for good measure. So that's kind of what I mean when I say it was an audience that was pretty engaged despite not being the most energetic group ever. Things certainly could have been much worse; I wouldn't call this one an, ahem, Spanish bomb in Andalusia.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Marbella (I got a brief glimpse of a printed list and it didn't seem like there were any changes):

 

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Company In My Back

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

Random Name Generator

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Ashes Of American Flags

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Circling back, at long last, to try and recount a delightful late afternoon and evening spent in the holiday beach town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, which is about an hour's drive from Barcelona on the beautiful Costa Brava...

 

We arrived in time to head to the city center and have a look at the charming beachfront and harbor area as well as a quick drink at a nearby café, but then it was time to head a bit further inland to the Porta Ferrada complex where the 61st edition of its summer series of concerts was taking place. The sprawling complex featured two sides, essentially — one with a smaller stage and a number of food stalls/trucks/etc., and bars and the other with the fenced-in "arena" area with the main concert stage and a small adjoining area with a few more bars and places to hang out. Once you got into the complex, most people headed to the side with the food and a warm-up band playing. The hardcore fans, on the other hand, mostly opted to queue outside the arena, which didn't open until about 40 minutes before the show was set to begin.

 

After a short, but enjoyable solo opening set by Tré Burt, who said he was "fresh off the airplane," Wilco finally took the stage as scheduled at 10 p.m. For those in the audience who had seen Jeff and Co. play just over a year ago at the Poble Espanyol in Barcelona without Nels (who missed several shows on last year's Spanish tour due to a positive Covid test) — and it seemed like there were quite lot of people in that group — the draw surely was getting to see the band back at full strength again. I suspect if you took a survey of what Spanish audiences most love about Wilco, Nels and his guitar work would rank quite highly on the list, so having the guitarist back in the fold raised expectations for this gig.

 

"Isn't it nice that (Nels) is back strong?" Jeff asked rhetorically before Box Full Of Letters. "Well, this is from a record Nels wasn't on..."

 

For his part, Nels didn't disappoint. He parried with Pat on a fiery Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull. Then adfter Box, he played one of the best Impossible Germany solos I've heard in some time. I even saw Jeff sneak a couple of looks over in Nels' direction mid-solo to take it in (and/or try to figure out how long he might stretch it out). Perhaps I was just in a sonic sweet spot, but I can't remember many solos where the sound was quite so visceral. Turning to Nels after the song, Jeff quipped, "I think you gave them the solo from last time, too." 

 

Jeff, meanwhile, looked to be reasonably spry for a 50-something man badly in need of a hip replacement. This was the first time I had seen him perform in nearly a month and when I saw him last, just playing solo, he really seemed to be struggling with said hip to the point where I wasn't sure how he would get through these upcoming Wilco band gigs. I know he had gotten some sort of cortisone shot recently that was supposed to help, but during that aforementioned solo tour, he stood on a special rubberized mat of some sort to take the load off a bit and he also wore a garish pair of sneakers that must also help. Here in Guíxols, for what it's worth, he wore his normal stage shoes and there was no mat in sight.

 

I'm sure Jeff has learned to manage his pain, and hopefully he is feeling better. When I saw him here for the first time in a while, he seemed like someone who could probably make it through the rest of the year, and not just be a shell of himself, but actually lead his band like we are accustomed.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (Via Chicago and the Many Worlds coda was on the printed list as the first song of the encore, but was omitted):

 

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Hints

If I Ever Was A Child

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

You And I

Box Full Of Letters

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

Red-Eyed And Blue>

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

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Second stop for the band on Euro tour '23 was a Spanish festival in Aranda de Duero, near Burgos. The Wilcomen evidently had time for just a short set, playing second fiddle to a famed Spanish duo called Amaral, who were celebrating their 25th anniversary.

 

Thanks again to the Wilcoworld authorities for the following setlist:

 

Handshake Drugs

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

A Shot In The Arm

 

Well I can assure you I wasn't at this kickoff show of Wilco's 2023 European run, which was apparently a 90-minute set in a parking lot (Grote Kaai) in Flanders as part of the 10-day Lokerse Feesten festival. I cannot provide any more details about the set, except to say that Jeff and Co. were scheduled to play on the creatively titled Main Stage from 21:45-23:15, following someone called Sylvie Kreusch and before a band called Balthazar. (Actually now that I think of it, I might follow someone on Instagram who was randomly at this show and made a comment about the stage being really high...so there's your detail.)

 

Fortunately, the good folks at Wilcoworld recorded the setlist thusly:

 

Handshake Drugs

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Hummingbird

Misunderstood

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Box Full Of Letters

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

The Late Greats

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

Red-Eyed And Blue>

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

Monday

Once again, don't really have time right now to get into the nitty gritty (or lack thereof) in tonight's show, but suffice it to say Jeff seemed to be enjoying himself and in pretty casual mode overall as he performed to a decent-sized, but not sold-out crowd at the quaint Stiefel Theatre in downtown Salina. For one night, Jeff didn't even mention his hip trouble, laughed at himself on more than one occasion when he struggled through the chords on Kamera and generally had a good time bantering with the receptive audience.

 

More when I get a chance, but I should note that this will presumably — barring any other show announcements — be the last time I'll get to see Jeff perform solo this year, which makes me a little sad. I'll have to rely on the reports of others for this final week of solo touring out West, so please don't hesitate to chime in if you're going to a show.

 

For now, here was the complete setlist as played in Salina:

 

Remember The Mountain Bed

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Story To Tell

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Box Full Of Letters ("waltz" version)

Ambulance

I'm Kind Of In Love With You

Guaranteed

Jesus, etc.

Country Song Upside Down

Hummingbird

Evergreen

You And I

Dawned On Me

New Madrid

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Gwendolyn

Kamera

I Am My Mother

You Are Not Alone

I'm The Man Who Loves You

California Stars

 

When I saw that this show sold out so quickly (within a day or two, if I'm not mistaken), I was a little surprised since Jeff's solo acoustic shows haven't usually moved quite so fast — even one in his quasi-hometown. But when I stepped into The Sheldon's intimate Concert Hall, which struck me as sort of a cross between a collegiate lecture hall and a chapel, I understood why. I don't have time right now to get into the relative intimacy of the venue and how that may and may not have contributed to the overall vibe of the show, but fortunately, the crowd was respectful in general but not overly so and that made for a pretty entertaining evening.

 

More to come...

 

No real setlist surprises outside of Screen Door, which Jeff said he hadn't played in a long time but decided to include in the set because a gentleman he named as Tim who was in the audience had recorded it the first time it was ever performed. At any rate, here was the complete setlist as played:

 

The Universe

Story To Tell

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Box Full Of Letters ("waltz" version)

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

New Madrid

Country Song Upside Down

Evergreen

Don't Forget

Hummingbird

You And I

Dawned On Me

Family Ghost

Passenger Side

Impossible Germany

Screen Door

You Are Not Alone

Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)

I'm The Man Who Loves You

A Shot In The Arm

2 hours ago, Bart said:

Was the fan exchange platform a Wilco thing or an Atlantis thing?  If it's the latter, where is it?  Hoping to get Jenny Lewis tickets for the Atlantis somehow.

It’s just through the regular event page on Ticketmaster. You basically have to just obsessively refresh and get lucky. If something comes open, then you just buy it like any other ticket. It seems like most of the Tweedy tix I heard popping up were within a day or two of the show (or even a few hours before), which I assume happens when people’s plus-ones or whatever can’t make it or they release a few holds. Good luck!

3 hours ago, Bart said:

Changing gears, how the hell did you score tickets for this?!?!?   I live in DC and don't know a single person who got a ticket to any of the shows?

I got shut out of the lottery as well, but got lucky through other avenues like a few other folks. There was a fan exchange platform that I know a couple people got in through day of show. Guess you just had to be determined and 

willing/able to take it down to the last minute…

OK everybody, straighten up. Don't slouch. Tatlock, tuck in your shirt and come here and let me do something about that cowlick! We might have a guest at any time in the form of a slightly grizzled singer-songwriter who has stopped by briefly to take the pulse of his audience. After all if there was a Web site where people discussed you and your work, where you could go anonymously and check out what people are saying, wouldn't you at least visit from time to time?

 

All of which is to say, welcome Jeff. (Or welcome back; maybe you never left.) Every now and then a comment made in passing tells me that Jeff is at least aware of what people are saying on here, as when he mentioned during tonight's eagerly awaited, sold-out show at the intimate new Atlantis venue that someone had commented that the previous night's performance at the neighboring 9:30 Club was "so mellow." Gesturing at himself and his acoustic guitar, Jeff quipped, "What did you think you were getting yourself into?" Haha, what indeed? A simple 90-minute set of songs spanning the career of a beloved singer-songwriter? A series of humorous vignettes interspersed with some tunes by a would-be comedian? A view into the complex mind of a veteran stage performer who regularly takes his audience to work with him, as it were, and lays bare his thoughts for all to see? All of the above?

 

OK, back to regularly scheduled programming. As you might have heard, The Atlantis is the newest venue operated by the folks behind the 9:30 Club and other D.C.-area music spots like The Anthem and Merriweather Post Pavilion. It's a room right around the corner from the current 9:30 Club that apparently has a capacity over just 400, but feels much more intimate than that with a small general admission standing area on the floor as well as a ringed balcony. From what I've been told, its design is an homage to the original 9:30 Club, which was located on F Street from 1980 to 1996. As one of the opening run of 44 marquee shows each costing $44 to celebrate 44 years of the 9:30, it's easy to see why it was so difficult to score a ticket for this show when they were first made available via lottery.

 

Certainly the venue took Jeff on a trip down memory lane as he stood on its triangular-shaped stage as a middle-aged man thinking back to all of the shows he had played at the 9:30 over the years, first as a member of Uncle Tupelo and then with Wilco and by himself. "Something about the shape of this room makes me shyer (than usual)," Jeff said four songs into tonight's show. "When I first played this type of stage in this town, I got to hide behind a pole most of the night. We opened for the Dead Milkmen, then Danny Gatton, then Teenage Fanclub. Then we started playing our own shows. And then we broke up. I'm gonna go through the whole list right now."

 

A couple of songs later, an actual list was brought out to Jeff and he continued to examine his past performance history. Confirming that the 9:30 moved to its current spot in 1996, Jeff scanned the list and announced that Wilco had played not once, not twice, but actually three times at the old location. "You're old!" a wiseguy in the audience yelled. "I'm old, that's true. My hip hurts," Jeff replied. Another guy in the balcony then shouted out, "You rock!" and Jeff deadpanned, "I know."

 

And so it went over the course of the show. The relative intimacy of the venue, combined with a receptive audience, seemed to lead both to a number of back and forths between Jeff and various audience members as well as just Jeff rambling on and on — sometimes to his own bemusement. For instance, he poked fun at the previous night's audience a couple of times, saying that past audiences were easy punching bags. But somehow that little bit turned into an extended visit to Banter Corner after he told a funny anecdote about and played the song An Empty Corner. "These are the kind of songs they wouldn't have been OK with last night. Stupid. The bigger the crowd, the dumber it gets. I don't make the rules. That's science. On this stage, we believe in science. Oh my God, am I still talking? Am I saying these words out loud?"

 

Then he decided to play Guaranteed and of course had to set it up with the always-entertaining bit about how he originally wrote a sweet song for his wife but had to change a lyric because she found the original too pandering. Before he could even play the song, though, a female audience member inquired, "Is she still your wife?" Which of course led Jeff on another funny tangent about the secret to a long and successful marriage. "We're more married than we were," he said with a knowing smile. "We just hate the same things. That's the recipe. You can like different things ... but if you don't hate the same things, it's hard. Hate's underrated; it gets a bad rap. We're all adults, we shouldn't pretend we don't hate."

 

Musically speaking, whether or not Jeff was actually struggling with his list of potential songs to play that he said was just filled with "all the saddest songs," he was at least a little more exploratory with his instrumentation tonight, judging by his use of a few different guitars (though no harmonica). Whereas he stuck almost exclusively to the favorite small-bodied Martin 018  (or is it an 00-18, you guitar nerds?) during the 9:30 show, he switched out a few different times at the Atlantis, using one of his 12-strings for Sad Kind Of Way and Kamera and, late in the show, a bigger-bodied Gibson on You Are Not Alone and Falling Apart (Right Now). Near the end of the set, Jeff brought up the four completely different shows he had played in Brooklyn leading up to these final two sets in Washington and joked that by the fourth night in Brooklyn, he realized that the songs he hadn't yet played were the ones "everyone wants to hear, because they're the songs I don't want to play."

 

Ultimately the Atlantis show proved to be a fun conclusion to this little run of East Coast solo shows. We got both a satisfying amount of songs and banter from Jeff, which doesn't always happen, including a several comedic bits I haven't even had a chance to mention (and isn't that what you come here for?) For instance, I was personally amused when a couple of different guys yelled out requests for some deeper cuts at one point — Hell Is Chrome was one, and Locator too, which actually seemed to pique Jeff's attention briefly — and it caused Jeff to quip, "Wow, you guys sure know a lot of my songs. It's awful...[pause]...nice of you."

 

And there was the moment when, after being rather polite and well-behaved for the first half of the set, the proverbial floodgates seemed to open and everyone started to shout out random requests and whatnot — someone behind me yelled out "Cult Of Personality," for example — Jeff looked out quizzically and asked, "What happened?" Then he took stock and continued, "Oh, I know what it is. On the eighth (sad song in a row), some people looked at their watches and started thinking, 'He's never gonna get to Heavy Metal Drummer.' It was a cogent analysis." And finally, I must squeeze in at least a mention of how Jeff joked that he had just learned a few weeks ago how to both strum and talk at the same time and he put it to use as part of a between-songs bit during which he briefly imitated narrating a nature documentary. You probably had to be there, but good times.

 

Anyway, here was the complete setlist, as played, for Jeff Sweetie's* debut at The Atlantis (*—term coined by support act Le Ren's guitarist Fez Gielen):

 

Remember The Mountain Bed

Story To Tell

I Am My Mother

Infinite Surprise

Impossible Germany

An Empty Corner

Guaranteed

Don't Forget

Evergreen

Hummingbird

You And I

Sad Kind Of Way

Kamera

Whole Love

Hearts Hard To Find

Art Of Almost

Jesus, etc.

A Robin Or A Wren

California Stars

You Are Not Alone

Falling Apart (Right Now)

I'm Always In Love

7 hours ago, Bart said:

Great write up, thanks!!

 

I'd like to see the original setlist vs what was played last night.  At one point early in the set, someone shouted out "Uncle Tupelo" and after some banter from Jeff, he went into New Madrid.

 

1 hour ago, Heart full of holes said:

We asked for a setlist immediately afterward and were told "There is no setlist." Was he winging it???? 

Absolutely amazing set from Mr. Tweedy.  

 

Wow, thanks for calling my one-paragraph lede "great." Haha, I will write some more that hopefully passes as at least fair to middling...

 

As for questions about the setlist, I always chuckle a bit to myself when people request "the setlist" at Jeff's solo shows because he usually just has a list of songs up there that presumably he feels comfortable playing on any given night. But it's not like he's following a set script. I think he's genuinely trying to feel out the room and the audience and then what he wants to play. That's my understanding of it, anyway. Sometimes he just gets in a mood, whether to talk or to not repeat a song over four nights or whatever it is. That's why I actually secretly enjoy Jeff's solo shows as much as anything he does, because you're getting pure unadulterated Jeff — sometimes that's amazing, sometimes it's amusing and sometimes it's awkward. In other words, the human condition.

Whaaaaaaat, Jeff Tweedy played four different solo acoustic shows in a tertiary outpost — Brooklyn, I think it was called — just to warm up for this single set in our nation's capital (that everyone could freely purchase tickets to attend without going through a lottery)? Oh, Brooklyn is more of a "quartiary" (quaternary?) market? Hey, Jeff said it...I didn't.

 

During that same bit of bantering about his run-up of shows leading to tonight's 9:30 gig, Jeff joked that what he was playing "are the songs that went over really well in Brooklyn." He had also joked on the final night in Brooklyn about breaking out of his no-repeat pattern there and just playing a "greatest hits of the first three nights" for the majority of the crowd that hadn't heard those songs. It's always interesting to see what ends up coming out on stage, but my thought was that he maybe wasn't entirely kidding about what he had said in either case. Certainly you could argue that this lone 9:30 set definitely resembled the first night at Brooklyn Made — which may have comprised a decent portion of the songs that he wanted to present during any given single show on this tour.

 

The first seven songs played at Brooklyn Made and the first six at 9:30 mirrored each other exactly with the exception of the new song Out For A Walk added to the sequence in Brooklyn. They both began with The Universe and also included a rearranged version of Box Full Of Letters that could be traced back to someone's request at last month's Vic benefit shows in Chicago for a "broken-down version" of Box that essentially Jeff interpreted to mean playing it in three-quarter time with a harmonica break (although he didn't play harmonica on it either at Brooklyn Made or 9:30). We also got the lovely 12-string guitar version of Country Song Upside Down tonight in Washington, just as the first night in Brooklyn, but that's where things started to deviate a bit, although both sets also included Lou Reed Is My Babysitter as well as singalongs Passenger Side and Jesus, etc.

 

After Lou Reed..., Jeff noted that "it took me an hour, but I figured out which kind of audience you are. You didn't come here for the beauty. You came here for the communal aspect of what we do. You came here to sing along. You didn't come here to see me finger pick beautifully." Of course Jeff had a little something for everybody, for example turning down a request for other potential singalongs such as California Stars in favor of a beautiful finger-picking tune in Muzzle Of Bees.

 

Personally, I was thinking during the show that it must be a bit difficult to play four nights in a relatively intimate venue and develop a rapport with an audience which, even though it wasn't the exact same people each night, you kind of got a sense of the room and what the vibe would be like. And to go from that to a bigger venue in a different city and have to get a feel for an entirely different setting. I know I was feeling that just as an audience member, so I have to imagine it was even more amplified for Jeff as the person whose job it was to entertain that room for 90 minutes.

 

My own feeling was that it was a little too reverential of an audience to create any truly memorable or humorous interactions. I mean, fairly early on different people called Jeff "beautiful" and "the GOAT" and there were a few admiring Tweedy Show clients who made themselves known, but there just wasn't much in the way of silly shouts or clownish behavior to play off. Or maybe Jeff just wasn't in a mood to really go there. One guy fairly early on yelled out a little awkwardly for Uncle Tupelo, and Jeff deadpanned in response, "I see you want the A-list material," before playing New Madrid. And a little later, during Company In My Back, another guy in the balcony yelled out a little too loudly out a couple of times mid-song — clever stuff like, "Yeeeeah!" and "Holy shit!" that Jeff could have at least given some side eye to but ultimately chose to ignore.

 

One thing I wanted to mention before I forget is that on this tour Jeff has been playing with his guitar plugged in for the first time in a long time. Many people don't even notice this, but typically when Jeff has performed solo in recent years, he has had a setup where there is a vocal microphone and then another microphone set up at his guitar level to amplify it, but the guitar isn't actually plugged in to the PA system. I've mentioned this before, and I'm not sure why it's returned on this tour. My only thought is that it's because these are the first solo shows for Jeff following the retirement of longtime front of house engineer Stan Doty, so perhaps Jeff has gone back to a more conventional setup to make it easier for Doty's replacement, Jared Dotorelli. In any case, I actually prefer when the guitar is plugged in because it has an added richness that is difficult to replace when the guitar is only amplified through a microphone. And though it really wasn't on display at 9:30 with the exception of the one song Jeff played a 12-string guitar on, the plugging-in really makes the 12-string guitars ring out.

 

I would also be remiss if I didn't also at least briefly mention the short, but sweet opening set turned in each night by Canadian country/folk singer Le Ren, who has been accompanied by her friend and fellow Canadian Fez Gielen on electric guitar and lap steel. I know she has been a favorite of Jeff's for a while now, and it's been nice to finally get to see her play live the past few nights. We even got the debut of a "hot off the presses" new song that she said had just been completed in the dressing room before the set.

 

As for Jeff, well, he pretty much did what he does and sent the 9:30 crowd home satisfied even without a true encore (it was the only mention of his bad hip all night, and he said at one point this would normally be where he goes off stage for a second while people applaud but he wasn't going to do that). He did pay at least a few visits to Banter Corner, some of which I've already recounted. One early one I didn't mention concerned how his ears were inexplicably plugged for the first few songs and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and thought "my hair really does look Founding Fatherish, especially for D.C. Like, "Man that guy was there when they wrote the Declaration (of Independence)." Later, he went on a brief tangent after one of his beard hairs got stuck in his harmonica during She's A Jar and he wondered if you went back and listened to the tape of that moment would you be able to tell that had happened. "Tears were streaming out of my eyes..it was like a Gallagher show," Jeff quipped about the comedian known for smashing objects with a giant mallet. "We're all gonna get wet."

Here was the complete setlist, as played, at the venerable 9:30 Club:

 

The Universe

Box Full Of Letters ("broken down version")

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Cruel Country

Country Song Upside Down

New Madrid

One Wing

Ambulance

Family Ghost

Hummingbird

A Lifetime To Find

Company In My Back

Radio King

She's A Jar (w/harmonica)

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Passenger Side

Jesus, etc.

Ashes Of American Flags

Muzzle Of Bees

Dawned On Me

A Shot In The Arm

I'm The Man Who Loves You

1 hour ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 

Guffaw.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4mC3Y4Dw-E

 

 

Hold on now, Nigel Tufnel entered the match?!?

 

https://youtu.be/TJL942hg0uM

20 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 

So he still has his ball in his hand?

Ah, Tatlock...that's for you to decide.

Four 90-minute shows in five days, no repeated songs! Standing up the whole time, despite a defective hip socket (or two?) causing a painful, uh, bone on bone situation! Playing not one, but two different 12-string guitars! While juggling a ball in one hand! OK, just kidding about the juggling! But really, what can that Jeff Tweedy not do?

 

At one point during tonight's fourth and final solo outing in Brooklyn, whilst musing on how the run of shows had gone and why he had ended up doing four completely unique sets, even Jeff had to concede that it was "pretty crazy" that he hadn't played even one song twice and asked if there was anyone from the Guinness Book Of World Records in attendance to certify what surely must have been some sort of record. Guinness, however, apparently missed the memo about the show (and perhaps a few other folks arrived a bit late as well owing to an earlier start that the venue decided on, I guess because it was Sunday. Jeff joked at one point, after already having played for about 45 minutes that he wasn't even due on stage for another 15. "Is it because everyone was tired from getting up early and going to church?" Jeff asked of a crowd that was maybe only half what it had been on the previous evenings.)

 

The relative sparseness of the crowd didn't deter Jeff from his path, however, which he said also had something to do simply with his desire "to play all of my guitars." While he had used one guitar exclusively during at least one other show on this Brooklyn run, during this final set, we got to see the gamut of the instruments he had at his disposal. Which was a delight, by the way. That included the aforementioned two different 12-string guitars, which both rang out beautifully with Jeff being plugged in — as opposed to just externally miked — and revealed their individual character. One featured a slightly richer, fuller tone on songs like Love Is Everywhere (Beware) and You Are My Face, while the other he used on Sad Kind Of Way and Kamera was a bit higher-pitched and janglier, at least to my relatively novice ears.

 

It occurred to me, as Jeff navigated between his various guitars, that he definitely seemed to be in a mood to play songs, especially early on. I don't think he often has a firm setlist he strictly sticks to for his solo shows and usually chooses from a list of songs, but the first half of tonight's set featured perhaps the closest thing to a plan that he maybe had throughout this run. How else to explain relative rarities such as Happiness and Black Moon popping up within the first half hour (which was more than welcome, by the way, though maybe some audience members who hadn't attended other shows might have preferred to hear a few more "conventional" tunes).

 

Then again, those same folks also got to hear Kingpin. Jeff had plenty of fun with that one, quipping almost immediately that it's "such a stupid song," but also conceding that it's "the only song I have like this...if we had pursued this path, we'd be a lot richer. We'd be on the jam-band circuit, chilling." Jeff then went on an amusing riff, exploring that very scenario: "I would have a silk hip...two silk hips...teeth made out of truffles...diamond eyes. I'd have have the best house, better than any of your homes. I'd have glasses that made my vision worse — I don't need to see this shit. I'd have a car made of marzipan."

 

Between moments like that, and subsequent guitar workouts on Laminated Cat and Side With The Seeds, I'd say this audience got to experience a good chunk of (in my humble opinion, anyway) makes Jeff's solo acoustic shows so compelling. For his part, Jeff seemed to be enjoying himself throughout. On Seeds, for example, he even had some fun trying to replicate some of the electric guitar parts on an acoustic. It's perhaps difficult to appreciate if you weren't there, but I know those of us who were up close all shared in the look of delight and wonder that crossed Jeff's face as he stretched to hit the highest point of one of the solos. Before finishing the song with an acoustic shredding flurry, Jeff shared that "Nels is here right now and he's gonna freak out that I'm gonna do his solo." Afterward Jeff deadpanned, "We must have different phrasing."

 

And so it went tonight, seemingly every song leading to some fun moment or expression or comment. Jeff even timed his inevitable loss of control of the audience pretty well. After announcing that the show was nearing its conclusion and encouraging the audience to boo him, as he has occasionally done recently, he singled out one gentleman to his left who was particularly vociferous in his booing and must have looked like he enjoyed wrestling, as Jeff observed. Of course, given a small platform, the guy couldn't help but to articulate a request for the song Drawing From Memory (Charlie), which had apparently made him "cry like a baby" when Jeff had performed it at another show he attended. Jeff demurred, saying he didn't think it was a song he could play tonight and the back and forth went on for a while until Jeff responded that "I'm gonna make you cry by denying your request," adding that he was going to also add a little extra spite as a sort-of bonus. "Fuck you, sir," Jeff jokingly said to the guy.

 

That wasn't the only noteworthy crowd interaction Jeff had over the course of tonight's set. He gently chastised a chatty section of the room early on, and also had his usual fun introducing and briefly interacting with courtroom sketch artist Elizabeth Williams, who has been at all of the shows drawing scenes from various angles. And a little later, while discussing his hip situation with a young woman in the front row, Jeff somehow got onto a brief tangent about how "you can see your junk in an X-ray" and how he was a bit miffed by that while going through the diagnostics with his hip ailment. Unfortunately, he also used the expression about it being a "bone on bone situation" before immediately trying to extricate himself from the phrase, which he said he definitely did not mean to use in conversation with a young woman. Oopsie. As Jeff himself admitted, "Boundaries are getting obliterated."

 

I should say, by way of trying to come to some sort of conclusion, that these shows were pretty special because of how intimate they really were. The only other parallel I think would be the Jeff's near-annual run of shows at Largo at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. It will be interesting to see how some of the other solo shows coming up go, but there's something unique about not only the relatively tiny venue that Brooklyn Made is, but also the run of multiple shows there that will be difficult to replicate. So I feel pretty lucky to have been able to get to all of these sets this week — and I know I'm not alone.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 4 at Brooklyn Made:

 

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

One And A Half Stars

Happiness

Company In My Back

Hints

Black Moon

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

You Are My Face

She's A Jar (w/harmonica)

Sad Kind Of Way

Kamera

Whole Love

Bombs Above>

Some Birds

Half-Asleep

Someone To Lose

Kingpin

Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)

Side With The Seeds

A Robin Or A Wren

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

If this really was "an epic show," as Jeff paused to observe late in his third of four solo acoustic performances at Brooklyn Made this week, then it'll be pretty interesting to see what happens tonight when the run reaches its denouement.

 

It was easy to see why Jeff said what he did when he did after an alarmed voice toward the back of the room shouted, "Jeff!" as he was nearing the end of Even I Can See. Apparently someone had passed out and the person was trying to get some help — they were quickly deemed to be fine — and Jeff didn't really stop playing for long, explaining that when he was coming up as a performer, "my deepest training was never to stop playing" because usually what happened was a fight had broken out and if the band stopped playing, things could escalate. But since this is a different crowd and era from those early days, Jeff simply kept strumming his guitar and reassured us by saying, "It's OK...just listen to the pretty music."

 

You could hardly have blamed Jeff for being a little more edgy, though, one night after a heckler (who apparently is actually a big fan who got contentious after ingesting some illicit substances) nearly derailed the show with some of his antics. Jeff made his longest visit to Banter Corner to share some details about the guy, who apparently was told by a venue official that he wouldn't be allowed in after he showed up early in line again, encountered Jeff and tried to apologize to him but was apparently still under the influence of something. According to Jeff, the man told him that he "took some Ecstasy and didn't eat" the night before, trying to explain himself. (For more details on what went down, check out my recap in that thread.)

 

In what Jeff likened to a sort of "Bring Your Audience To Work Day," in terms of giving a proverbial peek behind the curtain, Jeff said, "I can take an enormous amount of bullshit over 30 years of doing this," and then went on a funny tangent about when he was coming up, almost nothing could stop him from playing his appointed set. "You could put pigeon shit in my mouth," he said, citing how he and John Stirratt had once read a story about Kings Of Leon halting a performance because of pigeon excrement getting in their mouths and looked at each other in disbelief. "Kids these days, right?" He continued on, perhaps in TMI fashion, by sharing, "I have a bone protruding into my rectum right now through my hip socket. Am I gonna cancel?"

 

Uhh...yeah. So one of the themes of this run has been the state of Jeff's hips, which those who have followed him closely this year will know that he has been struggling with pain in his hips and will eventually need replacements for both sockets. Clearly he has been struggling, which led a woman to ask pretty early on in tonight's show why he didn't just play while seated like others do. Of course Jeff couldn't give a direct, straight answer, asking her why she didn't mind her own business before explaining that it was because of two main reasons. The first was that he was raised with the belief that standing while performing demonstrates respect for an audience. Then he mentioned seeing Neil Young play a solo acoustic show where he sat down and quipped that, "I think he's a bitch for doing that. ... I'm joking, of course, He's amazing." Jeff added that he also doesn't play these shows sitting down because it hurts just as much to sit versus stand and he worried that if he sat, he wouldn't be able to get back up.

 

Another continuing theme at these Brooklyn shows has been the presence of courtroom sketch artist Elizabeth Williams, who was apparently hired by Team Tweedy to document these shows and whose work, Jeff has joked each night, "you might recognize from the Southern District of Florida." At the very least, Williams' presence has offered a chance for some funny banter at least once during each show. Tonight Jeff introduced her and asked if she had captured a large fly that may or may not have been on his mic stand at one point. That led to Jeff likening himself to the Peanuts character Pigpen with jokes about Jeff's hygiene leading to at least one fly constantly circling around him.

 

Oh, and you might ask about the actual songs played during this show. Yes, for the third consecutive night, Jeff played a set of songs he hadn't performed over either of the first two nights. So it seems safe to assume that this trend will continue for at least one more show to close out the run. Jeff seems determined to give these Brooklyn audiences just about everything he has in the tank for 90 minutes, and that's plenty. Especially when he seems so determined to play all of the chords at the end of Handshake Drugs, for example, or get the intricate strumming pattern just right on Muzzle Of Bees.

 

As he had the previous night, Jeff announced fairly late in the evening that "I'm not gonna do the encore BS" of leaving the stage and coming back on, in part because he didn't want to have to navigate the stage stairs any more than was necessary. But he shared an interesting little anecdote about encores, saying that he thought it worked for Wilco because they got a chance to go off and say hi and check in with each other briefly, maybe even grab a quick sip of something, before coming back on. And the band members would always come back, even when there is hardly any applause to encourage them to do so, as happens often these days. So what brings them back? "We look at each other and say, 'I wanna play these last three songs. I don't care if they deserve it,'" Jeff said.

 

Hopefully we "earned" some of the non-encore tonight with our singing-along on the show-closing California Stars, which Jeff noted "came out 25 years ago yesterday." It's a song that I've heard so many times that it's hard to get excited about, but one of the exceptions for me is when Jeff plays it solo and takes the high harmony with the audience (hopefully and properly) singing the "regular" melody. It can be a beautiful thing.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 3 in Brooklyn:

 

Sunken Treasure

Guess Again

Family Ghost

On And On And On

Pecan Pie

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Opaline

Infinite Surprise

A Lifetime To Find

Bob Dylan's 49th Beard

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

An Empty Corner

One By One

Even I Can See

We've Been Had

Radio King

Handshake Drugs

Muzzle Of Bees

California Stars

OK, finally getting off my lazy ass and getting this one started. In a way, I'm glad I didn't get around to chiming in on either of Jeff's Brooklyn Made shows until now, because while there were some similarities between the two nights, the vibe of the crowd was quite different and that made for a pair of unique evenings.

 

I've been known to remark that when it comes down to assessing a Jeff Tweedy solo acoustic show, it usually comes down to whether he's in more of a mood to play or a mood to talk — and, of course, what your preferred amount of each happens to be. But of course there's also a third factor that you always have to take into consideration, and that is the audience. (Actually, you could say there is a fourth factor, too, and that would be the type of venue, but I think that usually doesn't play as big a role as people think and often goes hand in hand with the type of audience you have.)

 

Anyway, back to the audience. The thing is, you want a lively enough one to have some funny exchanges with Jeff and of course one that will participate when appropriate. Ideally you almost need someone to "play the fool" and serve as a good-natured foil for Jeff without things getting too tense or serious. But the flip side of audience interaction is you don't want to have too rowdy a crowd where people are yelling things that they perceive to be funny all the time or to have one person take over and/or become the center of attention. It's a fine line, as I've also been known to say.

 

Unfortunately, that line got crossed a bit tonight when one guy who Jeff later said had already been on his "danger radar screen" — he had a funny bit about how whenever he takes the stage, he has a knack for scanning the crowd and being able to identify the potential danger zones — started to get into it with Jeff in not a good way. I guess people around the heckler were already aware that he was not only inebriated but also on some foreign substance(s), but subsequently it was revealed that he was singing parts of songs as if they were the punchline of a joke so as to be distracting as well as standing perpendicular to the stage — sideways, as it were — in an almost-menacing fashion to the point where Jeff said something about it, joking that he should "square it up and enjoy the show." (I was also reminded later that the heckler also loudly bellowed, "Who the fuck is Elizabeth?" after Jeff had introduced and bantered a bit with the courtroom sketch artist Elizabeth Williams, who had been invited — or hired, I guess, by Team Tweedy — to document this run of shows in Brooklyn.)

 

At one point, the heckler had observed/inquired about whether Jeff was going to not repeat a song — he hadn't to that point — over the course of his four-show Brooklyn run as part of a point in the show where a number of different back and forths were being had between Jeff and various crowd members. Jeff initially demurred, saying he had wanted to play a new song that he had played on Night 1. But a little later when the heckler returned to the no-repeats mantra, that set Jeff off to the point that he made a comment about how no-repeat shows "aren't badges to put on your sash," not something to be "collected, like an early Lisa Frank or some rare stamps" and how "my songs are for everyone." I guess the guy doubled down or made it known he had a request or something because Jeff then asked him what he wanted and he yelled out in a very spoiled child tone that he wanted to hear Cars Can't Escape. Jeff quickly shot back, "If I play it, will you leave?"

 

Somehow things quieted down enough for Jeff to play the next song he actually wanted to play — Hearts Hard to Find — before he came back around to the heckler's request of Cars. When he strummed the opening chords, a big whoop went up, from the heckler, presumably, and Jeff drily said, "Keep it in your pants," before playing the song. Afterward I think I heard the heckler making a commotion about how he was going to live up to his end of "the bargain" and leave, though I'm not sure if he actually did or if he was escorted out (at least out of the music room and into the adjoining bar area).

 

In a way, as I said, it's a fine line when it comes to this type of behavior because on the one hand, it's awkward for everybody in the room. But on the other, as Jeff admitted the following evening, he felt like he played way better after being subjected to what he likened to Navy SEAL training for a singer-songwriter. And you have to admit that, especially on a midshow sequence that went from Less Than You Think straight into Impossible Germany and then followed by the much-loved acoustic arrangement of Art Of Almost, he did kind of take things to another gear.

 

However, along with the more focused level of performance also came with a bit more of a short temper and wariness that surely had to be the result of the heckler. For instance, when he started to play You and I, some guy in the back yelled out that he "could do the Feist part" and Jeff immediately shot back, "No, you can't." And earlier, when discussing the hip problems that he's been open about — Jeff has talked recently about how he will soon need to have both hips replaced — another man made a joke about how he would be getting "a shot in the thigh," and Jeff sort of rolled his eyes and quipped, "Thanks for your contributions to the night's entertainment."

 

All in all, it was one of those shows where Jeff kind of lost control of the the audience fairly early on and the crowd vibe kind of tilted a bit to that wrong side of the aforementioned fine line, obviously led by the heckler's outburst(s). But whereas that might have completely derailed a show in the past, it shows that Jeff has reached a point in his career where almost nothing really fazes him any more, at least in terms of giving an audience at least a certain level of professionalism. I feel like in the past, Jeff has veered more wildly with some of his solo shows where he can really go way above and beyond but also get that "deer in the headlights" look and make a beeline off stage at the earliest possible opportunity. Nowadays, I feel like no matter what happens, he's going to give his best for a certain amount of time. I don't know if this makes sense to anybody else, but it does to me as I write it.

 

At any rate, here was the complete setlist as played for Night 2 in Brooklyn:

 

Remember The Mountain Bed

Story To Tell

Normal American Kids

Many Worlds (w/harmonica)

Guaranteed

Ambulance

Less Than You Think>

Impossible Germany

Art Of Almost

Hearts Hard To Find

Cars Can't Escape

Don't Forget

Sky Blue Sky

You And I

New Madrid

Dawned On Me

Ashes Of American Flags

I'm Always In Love

The Lonely 1

I'll get back to this in a little while, but suffice it to say that Jeff seemed to feel a bit more confident in exploring some of the dustier corners of his catalog on the second and final night of his annual charity benefit shows at the Vic Theatre (not to mention venturing into a few cracks that aren't even old enough to have picked up any cobwebs at all). The result was a performance that might have been a little lighter on the chat than Night 1, but certainly felt more like the kind of overall effort that causes people to travel in from various corners of the country and wait on the sidewalk outside the venue for more than a few hours.

 

With some order restored to the universe — or perhaps just an extremely restorative pre-show nap — Jeff proceeded to entertain another sold-out crowd for two hours with just a few acoustic guitars (he actually used several different ones that he had with him on stage, unlike on Night 1 when he stuck with the same guitar for the entire show), his songs (once again, he stuck exclusively to his own compositions with nary a cover to be found) and his witty repartee (the "beret story," featuring the internal struggle between "Beret Jeff" and "Belleville Jeff" that had been introduced the previous evening once again took center stage, thanks in part to some attendees who procured a batch of black berets and donned them as Jeff took the stage, handing him one in the process).

 

At any rate, depending on your priorities as far as hearing Jeff play songs, telling funny stories or bantering with the audience, there was a certain degree of enjoyment to be had by all. And as Jeff once again jokingly reiterated from the top, as he usually does, these shows are for charity so they're "not good," they "should be painful — for you and for me," and if you're sitting back and looking at your watch and thinking about how long and rambling the show is, "then you're an asshole."

 

For now, here was the complete setlist as played for Night 2 at the Vic:

 

Story To Tell

Venus Stopped The Train

I Am My Mother

Opaline

Gun

Hummingbird

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

You Are Not Alone

An Empty Corner

Hearts Hard To Find

Sunken Treasure

The Lonely 1

I'm Kind Of In Love With You

Company In My Back

Where Do I Begin

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

Whisper

The Thanks I Get

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What Light

Jesus, etc.