bböp

53 minutes ago, BTom said:

OK, I have to express discontent over bbop’s post.  I have lived in Minnesota 67 years.  This is not - I repeat, not - a frigid weekend.  Not by any means.  In fact this morning we have some lovely fog to accompany the balmy 29 degree temperature.  Additional fact - I’ve not yet even moved beyond my lightest winter jacket all season and I’m outdoors a lot.  That said, I understand the problems of thin-blooded people in this climate.  It’s not for everyone.  Speaking of season, I’m intentionally avoiding set lists since the only show my wife and I are attending is tonight and we both want to be surprised.  However, fingers crossed that Laminated Cat has not yet been played.  Then later tonight, or tomorrow morning, I will enjoy bbop’s reviews as always.  A great way to live vicariously!

Haha, point taken. Thanks for checking out these inane ramblings, whenever you do so. I will admit it was much balmier (read: only about actual freezing) on Night 2 versus Night 1. But I was only going by Jeff's comment that it was like "a thousand below zero." Well, that and my numb toes...
 

2 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

T

 

(bit more to come)

#WaitingForThatA #AllDoneNow

For the final stop on this "Winterlude On The Road" series,  the Wilco Express rolled into the familiar confines of the Palace Theatre on a frigid mid-December weekend in the Twin Cities (is there any other kind?) and rolled out the first part of what figures to be another epic trilogy of no-repeat, wide-ranging shows that have characterized this brief but fruitful tour. As always, it will be interesting to find out what the next two night have in store.

Unlike the previous two stops in Austin and Tulsa, Jeff and his bandmates have brought a Winterlude-esque experience to the Palace before — they played three-night runs here in 2017 and 2019 — but as Jeff noted in his introductory comments, this year would be something different. The Palace is a 2,500-capacity venue with a general-admission standing floor and loge and balcony sections with seats (the latter of which Jeff poked a little fun in the second half of the show when he joked, "I'm not gonna say you're lazy or nothing, but you are sitting down," before admitting that the seated tiers would be exactly where he would be if he was attending the show).

"We may have called it Winterlude," Jeff said of the previous mini-residencies at the Palace, "but these are (shows with) no repeats, so we've got a lot of songs to play for you and we couldn't be happier to be here." And a few songs into the first set, before launching into I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, Jeff remarked, "There's some songs you probably never heard us play, then there's some songs you have..that's how it's gonna go."

Set 1 highlights included Should've Been In Love, which remarkably hadn't been played on this run yet, marking the 99th (or 100th, depending on whether you count Many Worlds and the coda to Many Worlds as separate songs) different song performed so far, as well as Far, Far Away and Venus Stopped The Train. What did all those songs also have in common tonight? Well, they all featured a minor lyric flub by Jeff, who didn't do quite as well as he has at other shows of hiding when he made a mistake. You certainly could have forgiven him for the brief blip during Venus, at least, since a plea for help from somewhere in the crowd — as well as the security staff's response to it — could be heard during the very quiet tune. I guess it was for someone who had passed out or something along those lines, which caused Jeff to check in afterward: "Is everybody OK? It's like a thousand below zero, but I didn't think I'd have to remind everyone to stay hydrated."

A couple songs later, on one of his odder visits to Banter Corner, Jeff reassured the audience that he had been told that "everybody is fine." Then he continued, "Somebody had a baby and that kid's gonna be far out, man." Then an awkward pause, during which Jeff perhaps realized the weirdness of his comment and then: "(There was) no baby." You probably had to be there.

Anyway, onto Set 2 and you knew that things were going to get livelier when Jeff strapped on the Flying V guitar that has made an appearance every night for exactly one song at each of these Winterlude On The Road shows. This time it was for a spirited Someone Else's Song that perhaps wasn't quite as irreverent as the rendition on Night 1 in Austin last week, but still got the de facto electric second set off to a rollicking start. And as it turned out, the Flying V would make a rare second appearance a bit later in the set when it returned to the stage after the apparent audible of Random Name Generator in place of the planned On And On And On. "We can rock some more," Jeff quipped. "Nothing wrong with that."

The second half of the second set, which also featured the shredfest You Satellite for the last time maybe for a long time, would basically play out with some of Wilco's most popular rockers, like Box Full Of Letters (on which Jeff extended his running joke about Glenn wanting him to let the audience that this song was from the band's first album, which Glenn didn't play on), Theologians (complete with rare "big riff" ending...nerd alert) and the closing two-fer of I'm The Man Who Loves You and A Shot In The Arm (two of the most--played songs in the Wilco catalog, probably, but still effective).

If there was one thing to complain about with this opening show at the Palace, especially for your humble correspondent who still had the relatively intimate confines of Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom on his mind — another amusing anecdote Jeff told, by the way, was after playing the song Hints in Oklahoma, someone in the audience there apparently yelled out "Drill, baby, drill," to which Jeff replied, "We're just a rock band, sir" —  it was that the space between the band and the front row was rather vast. Not only was the band set up pretty far back on the stage, but the gap between the barricade and the stage also seemed to be unusually far, which led to a distant kind of feeling that's maybe hard to convey in words, but was definitely there. The band and its audience were literally too far apart.

Which made the apparent audible to Too Far Apart to kick off the encore all the more fitting. Who knows if that's ultimately why Jeff and Co. ended up playing that one when they did, but it certainly was a fun way to bring the night to a close (along with the actual show-closing Heavy Metal Drummer). It ended up being the shortest show thus far in terms of the number of songs played and it wasn't close to the three-plus-hour barnburner we got on Night 2 in Tulsa, but for the first installment of this year's St. Paul trilogy, it was a more-than-welcome return to the area for a group that surprisingly had only played here once since the pandemic on a co-headlining bill with Trampled By Turtles at the Treasure Island Casino Amphitheater back in 2021. Wilco actually opened that show, deferring to the local bluegrass outfit on that occasion, so this was really the first headlining appearance here for Jeff and his bandmates in some time. So take all of that however you want, but that along with the promise of these Winterlude On The Road gigs seemed to make for an especially eagerly anticipated performance.

Here was the complete setlist, as played, on Night 1 (in the second set, On And On And On was on the printed setlist but was replaced by Random Name Generator and in the encore, Too Far Apart replaced Ashes Of American Flags, which had been on the printed list):

Set 1

Company In My Back

Should've Been In Love

Country Song Upside-Down

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Hints

Country Disappeared

Misunderstood

Far, Far Away

How To Fight Loneliness

It's Just That Simple

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

Venus Stopped The Train (Jeff and Mikael only)

Secret Of The Sea

Hesitating Beauty

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Set 2

Someone Else's Song

You Satellite

Hell Is Chrome

Panthers

Levee

One Wing

You Are My Face

Pot Kettle Black

Box Full Of Letters

I'm Always In Love

Random Name Generator

Theologians

I'm The Man Who Loves You

A Shot In The Arm

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

Too Far Apart

Heavy Metal Drummer

On 12/12/2024 at 2:47 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

OK, I'm in a holding pattern with plenty of fuel^*. No panic.

 

[TA TO COME].

 

P.S. ^* Bran flakes, banana, and big mug of tea in case you were wondering

I'll have that TA now...

Or maybe just a cuppa (TeA) to ward off the chill of Minnesota?

37 minutes ago, jhuml1 said:

 

I think he said it was sensual rather than essential. He was really just trying to recover from the guitar being so heavy!

That makes more sense. Thanks for the clarification! 

Well, Wilco Wednesday certainly didn't disappoint. That was the kind of barnburner of a show we hoped for when Wilco announced that it would play two nights at the storied Cain's Ballroom as part of this brief "Winterlude On The Road" tour, and while Night 1 was a fine performance, Night 2 really saw a little of everything — from wild jams and wonky notes to reinvented tunes and fan favorites, from a rowdy audience member apparently getting removed but ultimately being allowed back in to an adorable young fan in the front row literally receiving the microphone off of Jeff's stand from the frontman himself (among other gifts).

It was the kind of night when you look back and try to remember if all of that really happened. I suppose I'm here to attest that, after 35 songs and three hours and 20 minutes (including a 17-minute intermission), it really did.

Let's start with the nine- or 10-year-old(?) boy with a baseball cap pulled down low who was just tall enough to peer over the rail. He apparently captured the heart of anyone within sight of him with a little boy in their lives, including at least a couple of band members. After the first set, as he was leaving the stage, Mikael came over with his setlist and tried to hand it to the boy, who apparently didn't know to take it at first. When he finally did try to grab it, it unfortunately fell into the photo pit. But have no fear because Mikael jumped down off the roughly three-foot-high stage and retrieved it for him. Mikael also came and handed the boy his Set 2 setlist at the end of the show, too, and Jeff actually unscrewed his microphone and came over and handed that to the boy. I can't recall that happening before. The kid also got a pair of drumsticks to complete the memorabilia haul, and when we left, his dad (I assume) was taking a photo of him proudly displaying all of the gifts.

In some ways, it seemed almost like the Night 2 crowd was split between families — such as parents bringing their kids to the show, surely pleasing to Jeff and those behind the "Raised On Wilco" marketing campaign — and people out to have a good old time, if you catch my drift. The latter threatened to derail the show in the first set when one guy in the middle toward the front continued to make a spectacle of himself (you sort of figured there might be some issues when a full-on soccer-style chant broke out in that area before the show even started). I wasn't close enough to observe exactly what was happening, but obviously it caught the attention of not only Jeff but his tour manager and some of the Cain's security staff, who started to mobilize in that direction. Things came to a head toward the end of Set 1 when the guy apparently loudly requested a song and Jeff tried to deflect as usual by talking about how he should have gone through the process of requesting it on the band's Web site. The guy insisted he had, voting for whatever song it was "two or three times." Jeff replied in part, by joking, "Only two or three times? That's not gonna do it. Don't you know anything about elections?"

A couple of songs later, before Meant To Be, the guy was apparently still being disruptive because Jeff paused and rehashed one of his favorite lines about it being "like some Navy SEALs training to see if I can remember the lyrics." Then, gesturing toward the disrupter, Jeff continued, "I love you, man, but you gotta..." and then made a hand signal for calming down (those around him agreed, judging by the applause). Not long after that, security apparently reached the rabble-rouser and took him away. That caused Jeff to quip, "Now I feel bad. I just want everybody to know that I didn't have that man removed for having a good time. (It was) all you spoil sports around him. Now I miss him."

(This whole "storyline" continued into Set 2, believe it or not. After One Wing Jeff seemed to notice that a friend of the disrupter had also disappeared from where he had been standing previously and mentioned it when he checked in with the audience. "Everybody OK? Still here," Jeff said. "Where'd that friend go? Did they put him in Cain's jail?" Then a few songs later, after Dawned On Me, Jeff noticed that the disrupter had apparently been allowed to return. "He's back," Jeff said, then addressing the guy directly, "They let you back. I'm glad to see you're back. Thank you.")

Aside from audience shenanigans and interactions, though, there was plenty to discuss about the show just from a musical standpoint. Continuing and developing upon what they had done at the Austin shows the previous week, Jeff and his bandmates continued to keep even the die-hard fans on their toes with some new arrangements of a few songs from the back catalog. Art Of Almost returned to the set in its acoustic form, for example, and Someone To Lose featured a jammy outro that omitted the usual ending bit where Jeff goes "All the way...it's OK." Theologians, meanwhile, featured the rare "big riff" ending, which us nerds always root for, while relative rarities such as You Satellite, Laminated Cat and Camera brought their usual electric guitar pyrotechnics.

The revelation of the night, though, was almost certainly Kingpin, which had already morphed into a bit of an extended jam when the band played it on Night 3 in Austin. But the version of it that came off the stage at Cain's was something beyond. After the first verse, Jeff and Co. took it into Allman Brothers territory for a bit and when they finally made it back to the "I caught the flu and away I flew..." start of the second verse, they expanded further upon that southern rock vibe and just sort of took off tempo-wise into what seemed like double time for at least three or four minutes before eventually getting to the "Statue of Liberty play..." start of the third verse. As in Austin, they never reached the usual conclusion of the song with the "How can I give my love to you?" finale. I'm definitely not doing it justice, but perhaps it's indicative of the uncharted territory Wilco had ventured into when I saw Nels give Jeff a quick look afterward as if to say, "Did we just do that?" (That brief meeting of the eyes between Nels and Jeff kind of served as a bookend to the start of the show when Nels hit a slightly wonky note right out of the gate and Jeff sort of looked over at him with a slightly perplexed expression.)

Anyway, this was a show that did indeed feature a little bit of everything. By the time the band left the stage for the last time, following Glenn's energetic drum solo on Let's Not Get Carried Away, I would say that the show reached — and in some ways, maybe even exceeded — the lofty expectations set by the first half of this "Winterlude On The Road" series. I guess the only little nit I could pick would be the omission of Just A Kid as a show closer, which would have been perfect. But when you get a genuine connection between Jeff and his bandmates and their audience, two sprawling sets of music from across the Wilco catalog (including even some "proper" music, as Jeff joked when introducing Falling Apart (Right Now) at the start of the encore), a venerable venue with character and charm to spare, what else could you really ask for — a guitar on the way out?

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 at Cain's Ballroom (I didn't see a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

Set 1

Wishful Thinking

Evicted

Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)

Handshake Drugs

Blue-Eyed Soul

What Light

Muzzle Of Bees

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

Someone To Lose

How To Fight Loneliness

You And I

Pot Kettle Black

Forget The Flowers

Meant To Be

Via Chicago>

Many Worlds (coda only)

Set 2

Hell Is Chrome

You Satellite

You Are My Face

Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)

Camera

One Wing

War On War

Either Way

Impossible Germany

Passenger Side

Theologians

Dawned On Me

Walken

Kingpin

The Late Greats

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

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

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars

Let's Not Get Carried Away

Coming off a remarkable kickoff to this brief "Winterlude On The Road" tour in Austin last week, in which Wilco performed 98 different songs over the course of three shows, it seemed only natural to wonder what — other than the venue and the days of the week — would be different when the scene shifted to another favorite old stomping ground: Cain's Ballroom. Would the band play anything that it hadn't in Austin? Which songs wouldn't make the cut, given the two-night run in Tulsa (versus three in Austin)? Would the energy from the audience be the same? Would Jeff put on a jacket again? You know, the important questions...

Except for the issue of the jacket — some will be happy to note that Jeff once again sported an outer layer, opting for a denim number that fit the setting — I guess the answers to those questions depended upon your perspective. Well, I suppose the question of whether there would be any songs played that weren't in Austin was also a matter of fact — and the answer was no.

But lest that cloud your judgement about Night 1 at Cain's, let me assure you that it was still an above-average Wilco performance. As Jeff once again explained near the outset, the idea for these concerts was to take the special sorts of shows that he and his bandmates had periodically done around this time of year in Chicago to some different locales and get a chance to play some of the songs that they didn't get to as much usually. When thinking about places that "it would be fun to do that, this is one of the first places we thought of," Jeff said. "So it's not Wilco 101 for the next day and a half or so." (Amusingly he made that comment right before the band launched into I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and, realizing that he had just sort of contradicted himself, Jeff smiled and conceded off mike, "This is.")

The truth is, despite the two-set format and more than a few rarities and/or deep cuts, this Night 1 Cain's show probably was Wilco 101 in some ways. At least compared with the three nights in Austin. But did that make it a less-enjoyable performance? Well I suppose if you had attended all three shows last week, it might have felt like a slight letdown from a setlist perspective. For the vast majority of attendees, however — certainly those who weren't setlist scrutinizing — I think it was still a very enjoyable night.

I don't know how it felt from the back of the room, but if you managed to get a spot pretty close to the stage, one advantage that Cain's has over the ACL Live at the Moody Theater in Austin is its intimacy. The stage at Cain's is a bit lower and certainly much narrower than at ACL and that allowed the crowd, at least in the first few rows, to really feel a connection with the band. For example, during the second set after the Star Wars two-fer Cold Slope>King Of You, Jeff seemed to notice someone (a kid?) possibly nodding off and appeared to maybe apologize to their parents or something like that. I'm not sure if that's even close to what actually happened, but the point is there was certainly some kind of connection made between Jeff and someone in that moment. A little later, after Hate It Here, Glenn peered at some of us with a slightly dazed look on his face and indicated/lamented that he had accidentally poked himself in the eye with one of his drumsticks during the song. The show featured more than a few such moments of back and forth which, in my opinion, always makes for a better gig than those where the band is just looking out into blackness.

From a Banter Corner standpoint, Jeff once again had a little fun at Glenn's expense prior to Box Full Of Letters when he introduced the song as being from the band's first album — as he regularly does — and joked that Glenn didn't want him to say that because the drummer wasn't on that record and he "was being forced to play someone else's part." The natural segue after that comment would have been into Someone Else's Song, on which Jeff broke out the Flying V guitar he has been using on this tour in Austin. But although the Flying V did come out just then, it was instead for Random Name Generator (which, for those keeping track at home, made the count three songs from Star Wars and none from Being There or Summerteeth; the shutout of those two records was amazingly broken only by the inclusion of Outtasite (Outta Mind) in the encore). After the frenetic RNG, Jeff paused for a second and quipped, "I had to catch my breath a bit after that guitar. I'm still thinking about it. It's essential."

Of course you knew that being at Cain's, just a short distance from the Woody Guthrie Center, we were likely to get some Mermaid Avenue material. And that came during the first set, when not only did the full-band Remember The Mountain Bed resurface for one of the few times in the past decade — Jeff had an almost-imperceptible lyric flub about halfway through, one of several during the show — but we also got Secret Of The Sea and Hesitating Beauty back to back as well. In briefly introducing those songs as being by Guthrie, Jeff deadpanned, "He was a lefty. Did you know that?"

By the time we got to the end of the nearly two-and-a-half-hour show, during which Jeff had also surveyed the audience to see how many people would be coming again the following night (a lot, it seems) as well as apologized if anyone hadn't gotten to hear the song they had wanted to hear (he rehashed a joke he has made about there being "pamphlets in the lobby" to help people deal with their favorite song not being played), we had nevertheless gotten to hear 33 songs. And enjoyed more than a few amusing moments.

I'll just mention one more of those here, which occurred during Casino Queen. During the breakdown before the third verse kicks back in, Jeff looked over at Nels, who was bent over at the waist with both arms fully raised behind him in what almost looked like a yoga position and his guitar dangling from his upper body just by its strap and almost got so distracted by the sight that he forgot to start singing again and leading the handclaps. It's hard to do justice to the image, truthfully, but it was just another example of the little details you could observe because of the relative intimacy of this venerable old honky tonk and that alone made for a fun evening. Solid by any measure, if not spectacular only when compared to the mind-melting marvels that were the Austin shows.

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 at Cain's (there were no changes/omissions from the printed list):

Set 1

Sky Blue Sky

Company In My Back

Remember The Mountain Bed

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Country Disappeared

Everyone Hides

It's Just That Simple

Shouldn't Be Ashamed

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

Quiet Amplifier

Secret Of The Sea

Hesitating Beauty

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Set 2

Infinite Surprise

Annihilation

At Least That's What You Said

Hummingbird

Panthers

Whole Love

Cold Slope>

King Of You

Side With The Seeds

Box Full Of Letters

Random Name Generator

Jesus, etc.

Hate It Here

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

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

Casino Queen>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

I'm A Wheel

4 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta

Didn’t know JT was a Paul Daniel’s fan.

Yet again, I had to Google to understand what you were talking about.

To quote the esteemed Scott McOi, I'm not bitter. #NotAtAll #JustALot

On 8/29/2024 at 7:46 AM, nalafej said:

Two South East USA dates on the calendar already!

 

Any predictions on what we'll see the rest of the year?

Anyone else notice that April 26th date as part of the Moon Crush Pink Moon weekend in Florida has disappeared from both Wilcoworld and the Topeka sites and seems like it might get scrapped? When you Google "Wilco April 26 Moon Crush," this is the first thing that comes up. It's a link to Wilcoworld, but it goes to a dead page:

26 April 2025 | Miramar Beach, FL | Moon Crush Pink Moon

1 minute ago, Brian F. said:

Oh, no! I have homework!

Approximately 15 people will be counting on you!

On 12/4/2024 at 2:44 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Those cruise things normally hold no interest to me (I find the set-up a bit socially intimidating), but it has just come to my attention that Emmylou is on this one. With that line-up there could be some all time special collaborations (at least to my ears). I think not much has surfaced online from past trips, but I really hope to see/hear something of this one (err - Sue? Tweedy Shanty Show special snippets? Pretty please?).

I shall be in attendance and endeavour to scratch your proverbial itch as much much as possible, O Tatlock. Not sure if Jeff and Emmylou will wind up doing anything together — here's hoping — but one of Jeff's performances is already listed as "Tweedy Creek," so we can safely guess that there will be some interesting stuff to come out of the presumed collab between Jeff and Nickel Creek.

30 minutes ago, Brian F. said:

I'll be there all four nights.

Unfortunately I'm not able to make it this year, so I'll be looking forward to your reports. Thanks in advance for holding down the fort.

And just like that — 98 different songs, six full sets, three encores and a partridge in a pear tree — the first chapter of Wilco's "Winterlude On The Road" experiment drew to a close tonight. I'd say it pretty much was a resounding success.

As Jeff mentioned each night in Austin, the idea behind this relatively brief tour was to bring the type of unique shows that the band has played in Chicago over the years under the Winterlude moniker to some different markets. These were special shows in which the band treated fans to such achievements as playing 100 unique songs over five nights, performing in venues that got progressively smaller in size and doing every song that it had ever recorded up to that point. In taking Winterlude outside of Chicago this year, Jeff and Co. put together two separate sets of music (plus a short encore) each night for the first time ever and delved into a number of rarities — many of which stemmed from the so-called "deep cuts" set at the Solid Sound Festival earlier this year.

That was certainly true of the Night 3 encore, which was identical to the one from that Solid Sound set minus the pandemic-era tune Tell Your Friends. I kept thinking, even expecting, that we would get a Spiders (Kidsmoke) finale, but I should have known better. Instead, the delightfully fun trio of Let''s Not Get Carried Away (featuring Jeff on the "Flying V" guitar that made an appearance each of the first two nights, as well as the always-entertaining Glenn drum solo), Kicking Television and Just A Kid sent us off into the drizzly Austin night. It might not have been the preferred conclusion for some of the more casual fans in attendance, but I'm pretty sure the die-hards were into it. Ahem.

(It occurred to me afterward that it would be funny if Glenn got to tease Jeff for his Flying V the way Jeff had poked fun at him not only in anticipation of the drum solo — Jeff jokingly asked Glenn prior to Let's Not Get Carried Away if he "needed to warm up," — but also for his "little cymbal." It's kind of hard to do justice to the image of this small cymbal perched atop one of Glenn's larger cymbals for Can't Stand It, but it was amusing. "I'm surprised it doesn't have its own mike," Jeff quipped. Then again, the Flying V exudes rock 'n' roll, while the tiny cymbal, well, does not. If only he had the gong! Poor Glenn.)

But anyway, I digress. Even on the third night of this no-repeats mini-residency — when you could somewhat predict what songs would be played based simply on what hadn't been played yet — Wilco managed to keep its audience on its proverbial toes. One example of this came just three songs into the first set, which had been established over the first two nights as kind of an acoustic-focused run of songs with Jeff playing almost exclusively acoustic guitar. You wouldn't expect the relatively noisy Art Of Almost to fit in there, but the band performed a mesmerizing acoustic arrangement of The Whole Love tune that mirrored and expanded on the way Jeff performs the song during his solo acoustic shows.

A bit later during the first set, Jeff introduced the Cruel Country deep cut Sad Kind Of Way by saying, "I don't know how many times we've played this song live. Not a lot." He was definitely right about that, considering it was just the second time the full band has done the song — the first time being at the 2022 edition of Solid Sound when it played the album in its entirety. Another Cruel Country track, Many Worlds, closed out the first set and I don't have the stats on how many times the full version has been performed live, but it also hasn't been all that common.

The second set began, as many shows Wilco has played in support of Cousin have, with that album's opener, Infinite Surprise. But once again, Jeff changed things up by using an acoustic guitar (a model with several knobs on it that I don't remember Jeff using before, but on which he played more than a couple of songs tonight) instead of the usual electric. Other highlights from the second set included two songs from Hot Sun Cool Shroud, Annihilation and Say You Love Me, which you knew were coming at some point given the EP's official physical release the previous week. And the band cut loose toward the end of the set on Walken and Kingpin, the latter of which was sort of an odd version with a long guitar jam before Jeff actually got back to the "Statue of Liberty play..." part. It seemed like he was never going to come back to it and he finally did, but then the song just ended without the last line ("How can I give my love to you when I don't know what to do.") or any of the usual crowd interaction/antics. Also, did Jeff change one of the "Pekins" to Austin? It was hard to tell.

As with Nights 1 and 2, Jeff didn't make many extended visits to Banter Corner. Aside from his jabs at Glenn, Jeff briefly reiterated what had become sort of a running joke over the three nights in Austin about one person periodically yelling out an individual word of encouragement and how he was surprised that no one really had done that yet on Night 3. Of course that led to any number of people shouting out various things, to which Jeff replied, "It doesn't work if you all do it at once." He also rehashed a line he has used before after donning a harmonica rack for the first and only time during the run on She's A Jar: "That motherfucking harmonica holder pulled out half my beard," Jeff complained. "That's some Navy SEALs training for a singer-songwriter. ... I think I passed." And toward the end of the show, Jeff also commented on the damp, dreary conditions in the Texas capital the past few days by saying that when he and his bandmates decided to bring Winterlude to a city like Austin, they figured it would at least have nicer weather than Chicago in the winter. "We thought the weather was never gonna be (inclement), so I guess that's on us," he said. "It's gonna be nice when we leave."

Fortunately these shows weren't outdoors at Stubb's or one of the other amphitheaters around town. For this mini-residency anyway, the relatively cozy confines of the Moody Theater seemed just right. Jeff and his bandmates, of course, have a long and storied performance history in Austin, were inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame in this very same room in 2021 and are obviously beloved by plenty of people around these parts. It seems reasonably safe to say that, after three more memorable outings this week, Wilco has even further cemented its legacy here and added yet another chapter to its still-growing history.

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 3 at the Moody Theater (didn't get a look at a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions it appears there was only one change/omission from the printed setlist, which was Red-Eyed and Blue — sadly — not being played before I Got You):

Set 1

Wishful Thinking

Evicted

Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)

Muzzle Of Bees

Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)

She's A Jar

Either Way

Handshake Drugs

Via Chicago

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

Sad Kind Of Way

Ashes Of American Flags

You And I

Forget The Flowers

Meant To Be

Many Worlds

Set 2

Infinite Surprise

Annihilation

At Least That's What You Said

Hummingbird

A Magazine Called Sunset

Can't Stand It

Sonny Feeling

Say You Love Me

Impossible Germany

Passenger Side

Dawned On Me

Walken

Kingpin

Heavy Metal Drummer

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

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

Let's Not Get Carried Away

Kicking Television

Just A Kid

3 minutes ago, theashtraysays said:

Did you happen to notice a gong lurking behind the stage? 

If only! #GongShow

17 minutes ago, Brian F. said:

I can speak from experience that the band's performance was already pretty tight by 1997. Whether it was that they were playing a lot of shows, or rehearsing a lot, or some combination, there weren't many loose or shaggy renditions of songs on the Being There tour, at least it didn't feel that way in the room. To the extent things got loose (e.g., encores of "Monday"), they seemed purposefully loose.

Yeah, I get your point. I guess what I was trying to suggest with what I wrote about Someone Else's Song and just sort of that Being There-era in general is not so much that the band wasn't playing well, but there seemed to be — at least listening to some of the recordings from that time — more of a sense of irreverence or something. And I guess that's sort of what I took from the version of SES from tonight's show in Austin.

When you undertake a series of shows in which you promise not to repeat a song over the course of three nights and play some that you haven't in quite some time, I think it's safe to assume that a certain amount of planning has gone into the endeavor. There's picking the songs you want to play, then rehearsing the ones you don't know as well and of course dividing them up as evenly as possible over the course of the run, so that each show has its fair share of so-called "hits" as well as deep cuts that will satisfy both die-hard fans and more casual attendees alike — whether they are going to all three shows or just one.

And then there's the format of the shows, which was established on Night 1 and which Jeff once again noted were basically the first-ever Wilco shows in which the band has taken a mid-set break between two distinct sets. I'm not suggesting that these "Winterlude On The Road" shows are formulaic, but I would say that on Night 2, we had at least a better idea of what to expect.

Within that template, though, there was still room for Jeff and Co. to surprise, which to me was the highlight of Night 2. Exhibit A of that came just seven songs into the first set, when the band debuted an excellent rearrangement of the Ode To Joy cut Everyone Hides that kind of centered on that song's main guitar riff. Beginning with an almost-twangy lead-in, the song eventually expanded into a full-on jam with Pat leading the way with an energetic electric guitar part. Take it from me, as someone who's heard that song a fair bit since its live debut in 2019 (and who may or may not have a connection to its video), this performance of it was definitely something to behold. Is Wilco a jam band now? Well, let's not get carried away (speaking of which...wink wink).

Anyway, another surprise came a bit later in the first set when the sextet tackled another cut off Ode To Joy, Quiet Amplifier, for just the second time ever after performing it live for the first time at the Solid Sound Festival this past summer. That performance featured special appearances by a few guest percussionists, including Spencer Tweedy and Glenn's daughter, Vivian, but there were no special guests this time, making this the first time Wilco played the percussive track on its own and Glenn — as he always is, but particularly here — was a marvel to behold.

Other noteworthy moments during the first set included the deep cut Venus Stopped The Train performed hauntingly by just Jeff and Mikael — Jeff nearly flubbed the end of the first verse, but managed to save it and also not betray the almost-stumble as he often does in such instances — as well as Remember The Mountain Bed. Though Jeff has performed the Woody Guthrie tune fairly regularly during his solo and Tweedy band shows, Wilco somewhat amazingly hadn't played it live in more than nine years (unless I'm missing something...it was on the printed setlist at a show in 2017 but wasn't actually played that night, despite Wilcoworld reporting that it was).

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the near-bookends of Night 2, Set 1 — namely, Reservations and Less Than You Think. After the former, which concluded rather quickly without any of the long ambient section at the end, Jeff made one of his few visits to Banter Corner during the show when he asked the audience if it thought "we were gonna do the whole outro. We should have. We should've taken a break after the second song (of the show)." We did, however, get at least some of the drone following Less Than You Think, which was the perfect closer for Set 1. As the band left the stage one by one, the drone carried on and the house lights stayed down for about five more minutes before it finally faded out.

Following the template established on the first night, the second set turned much more electric, as in guitar focused. We got the fan-favorite Star Wars twofer of Cold Slope>King Of You followed by a frenetic Laminated Cat and the heavy, capital-C version of Camera all in a row. And then the Flying V that Jeff broke out on Night 1 reappeared on a loose rendition of Someone Else's Song that — dare I say it — harkened back to the Being There days in 1997 (or at least what I imagine it would have been like if I had actually been around back then). It was all pretty glorious, I must say. Even on another rarity from the early days, Blue-Eyed Soul, Pat twanged it up with some neat licks on his Telecaster, echoing what Brian Henneman presumably contributed as the lead guitarist on the A.M. studio version.

Things got a tad more conventional after that outburst in the second set, but it was still a fun way to bring it home with the set-closing trio of Monday, Outtasite (Outta Mind) and I'm A Wheel. Jeff had his worst lyric flub of the night, unfortunately, on Monday when he blanked on the start of the second verse — the "Blister on a turnpike..." line — and just couldn't save it. Oh well, it was still fun and kind of in keeping with the freewheeling nature of the second set.

As I said earlier, there really wasn't much in the way of banter — Jeff did have a brief moment with Glenn after War On War when they sort of looked at each other quizzically as if maybe one of them had gone a measure or two too long during the concluding strum-and-drum-off, and Jeff also briefly pointed out one guy at the start of the encore who had apparently not been standing square up to the stage during the show (which Jeff has had some issues with during a couple of his solo shows) — but when you've got 30-plus songs to play over the course of two sets, I suppose you just let the songs do the talking for you.

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

Set 1
Poor Places>
Reservations
Sky Blue Sky
Remember The Mountain Bed
I Am My Mother
Cruel Country
Everyone Hides
I’ll Fight
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
War On War
If I Ever Was A Child
Hearts Hard To Find
Venus Stopped The Train (Jeff and Mikael only)
Quiet Amplifier
Less Than You Think

Set 2
The Late Greats
Blue-Eyed Soul
Whole Love
Cold Slope>
King Of You
Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season)
Camera
Someone Else’s Song
One Wing
What Light
Jesus, etc.
Hate It Here
Monday>
Outtasite (Outta Mind)
I’m A Wheel
-------------------------------------
Falling Apart (Right Now)
California Stars

8 hours ago, nalafej said:

Wow. Love the ambitious night one. Wish I had been there.

 

Great recap.

 

Now making plans to see some of the shows.

 

The first show of the 2010 Evening With tour, in Miami, had a set break. I was there. It was weird and the band must have felt that way too at the time. Glad they figured it out. Long shows with a break for beverages and bathrooms and raving about bustouts is the way to go.

Oh I was at that Miami show, too, and you're right about the set break. But I'm not sure it was intended that way, just that they hadn't figured out yet what they were doing. Haha. Anyway, I figured this setlist (and the prospect of more) might get you out of frigid Chicago. See ya in, uh, St. Paul? Lol.

5 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Do you mean these guys?

Bit of a curveball from you. Anyway. Ta.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, in terms of audacity and endurance, tonight might not quite have been the legendary "An Evening With..." Wilco run of March and April 2010 — when the band played a series of epic, extended shows that included a mid-set segue into and out of an acoustic run of songs — but it came pretty darned close. Kicking off a run of seven shows in which the stated goal was to take the "Winterlude" concerts that Jeff and his bandmates have performed in Chicago over the years on the road to some different places, the first of three nights in Austin featured two separate sets (and a short encore) that added up to more than 30 songs, including more than a few that the band doesn't break out very often anymore.

As Jeff noted pretty early on, I'm pretty sure that the two separate sets format was the first time that Wilco has ever done such a thing live. And in retrospect, it's kind of surprising that it hasn't because the way the band broke things up was very logical. The first set featured more of an acoustic, moody — no pun intended — vibe with Jeff not playing electric guitar at all (except for the bass on It's Just That Simple), while the second emphasized some of the more electric guitar-focused songs from the Wilco catalog (including Jeff on a rarely seen "Flying V" on Random Name Generator).

"We divided up the night into two sets, maybe for the first time ever," Jeff said of adding a 15-minute intermission between two halves of the show. "I don't know if we've ever done that, (so) it's a big night for us."

Given that it was Wilco's first show in just over six months, you might have expected the sextet to ease into things with an emphasis on more recent songs from Cousin and the freshly released Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP. But that would have to wait for another night, apparently, with exactly one song from Cousin played (Levee, which wasn't even one the band played very regularly while touring the album) and none from HSCS. No, Night 1 proved to be more of a show for the hardcore fans with plenty of deeper cuts sprinkled into the mix. Obviously Jeff and Co. had rehearsed — at least more than usual — and that resulted in some relatively unexpected song choices. Topping that list surely was You Satellite, a Star Wars fan favorite that hadn't been played live in eight and a half years and I'm almost certain never independent of a performance of the full album.

Another satisfying pairing came in the first set with the back-to-back performances of Hints and Country Disappeared — two of Jeff's most explicitly political songs — in Wilco's first show since Election Day. Jeff didn't make any comments on the subject, but I can't believe that those two songs making the setlist of the first show back was purely coincidental.

Amusingly, the only song that was kind of a train wreck was one of the few that Jeff said he and his bandmates hadn't really practiced: Hesitating Beauty. Of that tune, Jeff said he and the band figured, "Ah, we know this one," and when the song started, he said he started thinking, "Oh shit, I do know this." So of course he almost immediately botched the opening verse and proceeded to struggle his way through the rest of it. "That's a lesson to all of us," Jeff joked afterward. "Don't ever think you're doing great."

On the whole, everyone on stage seemed to be pretty relaxed and enjoying themselves in a good way. Jeff didn't wear any sort of jacket for the first time in a long time, and even unbuttoned his shirt during the encore (to reveal, I think, his trusty Big Bill Broonzy T-shirt underneath). Pat, meanwhile, had his well-regarded "winter beard" well underway. And it was certainly nice to hear John's voice on It's Just That Simple and on various harmonies throughout the show, smiling all the while.

From a banter standpoint, Jeff also had a little fun with his bandmates. After It's Just That Simple, Jeff mentioned that John "just turned 47" and followed it up with something about how they were going to lie about stuff like that from now on. A little later, before Box Full Of Letters, Jeff looked back at Glenn and quipped that the drummer "wanted me to let you know this (song) is from our first album and he wasn't on it." Jeff also mentioned in that stroll down to Banter Corner that there was an internal debate about what music to play in between sets and that he wanted to play the Chipmunks — presumably from Christmas With The Chipmunks? — but no one would agree on it. "I don't know whether they got cancelled, but I still like them," he said.

Banter was hardly the focus for Wilco's long-awaited return to the stage, however. In these sorts of multi-night runs with the promise of no repeated songs, whether a mini-residency in the same venue or at a festival such as Sky Blue Sky, the first night is always arguably the most interesting show because everything is theoretically on the table and then as the shows go on, it becomes a little easier to know what to expect based on what hasn't been played yet. It's kind of antithetical to the idea of each night being better than the previous one — the "second night is always better than the first" rule, if you will — but based on tonight, if Wilco can significantly improve upon that show we just saw, then we'll have quite a pair of performances to look forward to the next couple of evenings. Long live "An Evening With Wilco," amirite?

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 in Austin (I didn't get a glimpse of a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions — though it seemed like there was at least one audible called to start the encore when the crew initially brought out an acoustic guitar for Jeff but then took it away):

Set 1

One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)

Company In My Back

Country Song Upside-Down

Shouldn't Be Ashamed

How To Fight Loneliness

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

Hints

Country Disappeared

Misunderstood

Far, Far Away

Bob Dylan's 49th Beard

It's Just That Simple

Secret Of The Sea

Hesitating Beauty

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Set 2

Hell Is Chrome

Panthers

Levee

You Satellite

You Are My Face

Pot Kettle Black

Box Full Of Letters

Random Name Generator

Side With The Seeds

Someone To Lose

I'm Always In Love

On And On And On

Theologians

I'm The Man Who Loves You

A Shot In The Arm

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

Too Far Apart

Casino Queen

Finally finished this one! OK, carry on.

8 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Scroll secure in leather cylinder. Check.

 

Ta. 

Once again your dedication to my blather has haunted me since I finally managed to finish this one. But I had to pull the scroll out of its cylinder to do so, thus accounting for any amendment from your previous quotation(s).   

For those of you following along at home, and I realize that number is probably in the low teens at this point, I offer at last this account of the final performance on Jeff's October solo jaunt across these United States. If you'll recall in my previous recap of the penultimate show on the tour, I suggested that for as ideal a venue as the Guild Theatre might have seemed, its intimacy and acoustics could sometimes lead to a too-sterile atmosphere that isn't the sort I prefer for this kind of show. Well...a corollary to that theory is that the venue can also fall victim to a particular kind of audience member (or members) who can easily "take over" the room simply by being loud and overly boisterous.

And you guessed it, that's kind of what happened on Night 3 in Menlo Park. Even better (note sarcasm), I had a direct view of the primary show hijacker — henceforth, the Hijacker — because he was sitting literally right in front of me. Fantastic! (Anybody remember the infamous Mayor of Cedar Rapids' daughter show of 2011, by chance?)

So it didn't take long for The Hijacker and others to unfortunately make their presence known. Four songs, to be precise. I'm pretty sure it was during Some Birds when the guy sitting in the row of chairs right in front of the primary general admission standing area — and right in front of me — decided to stand up. No one else in this row of chairs had stood either of the previous two shows, mind you, but I thought, "OK, he's a little enthusiastic," which frankly would have been welcome on Nights 1 and 2. But then he began bellowing things like "Go Cubs!" and stuff about how Jeff should play "Graceland" and how "Graceland is in Chicago," and I think we started to sense we might be in for a long night. It didn't help that a few other people in other parts of the room decided to also chime with their own inner monologues to the effect of: "Go Maroons! Belleville!" “Blue-Eyed Soul” and "Play something in B-minor!"

"What the fuck is happening here?" Jeff responded. "Do you not know who you paid to see? This feels like when someone asked me if I had a comb." That caused the Hijacker to start mumbling some more nonsense at Jeff about how, "You have great hair, young man." (He kept calling Jeff "young man" over the course of the show for some reason.) Jeff shook his head at the continuing stream of comments, quipping, "Geez, times are tough all over." A bit later, Jeff asked how many people had attended either of the previous shows at the Guild. More than a few responded in the affirmative, to which Jeff deadpanned, "I'm sensing a different energy in this room."

It's hard to even fully convey the full picture of the Hijacker. He was a middle-aged bald guy who would stand up and sit down intermittently, filming extended portions of the show very shakily on his phone while his right arm was frequently aloft making some kind of gesture like a fist or rock horns. He was clearly a bit tipsy and/or high — he would get up and go get himself another beer at least a couple of times during the show, somehow not getting cut off — but not so much that he stumbled while walking or slurred his words. Jeff handled him quite well overall, but the Hijacker's behavior clearly influenced what songs Jeff would play, at least for a while.

After dusting off the somber new tune Ain't It Shame in response to another exchange with the guy — basically the Hijacker said "nice hairstyle" and Jeff replied, "I think you said that already — and everybody knows" — Jeff explained his strategy to the rest of the audience. "I'm gonna keep playing these kinds of songs," Jeff said. "I'm just trying to squash this one guy's enthusiasm. Here, I've got another one..." Then he launched into Everlasting Everything and the opening lyric, "Everything alive must die..." drew a hearty chuckle from some in the crowd. After returning from one of his beer runs, after Jeff had played another couple of quiet numbers, the Hijacker inexplicably yelled out, "Go Niners!" causing more groans from other audience members. To which Jeff finally replied with more than a hint of exasperation, "Is he gonna go to sleep soon?" (Sadly, he did not.)

So there was that little drama playing out over the course of the show — and I admit I even glanced at my phone at one point to see what time it was and wondered how Jeff would get through the rest of his set — but it wasn't the only one. Another little running "joke" involved another guy who persistently yelled out for Jeff to play something in the key of B-minor. It even got to the point where Jeff finally tried to grant his wish, playing How To Fight Loneliness, but afterward still struggled to understand the key request. "It's like 'What's your favorite song? Oh, I bet you don't know what key it's in,'" Jeff said. "I've never seen that before."

It was largely a head-scratching kind of night. Jeff had yet more entertaining visits to Banter Corner that I don't even have time to recount here, but I'll just mention one in which he gave himself a little pat on the back — and the audience some gentle shade — for not having repeated any songs from the previous two nights. He would go on to only repeat Lou Reed Was My Babysitter (as well as playing An Empty Corner two of the three nights). "I haven't played a single song I played the other two nights, so hooray for me," Jeff said. "You guys got the dregs. You got the bullshit songs. Get your tickets earlier next time."

It wouldn't be an accurate recap if the Hijacker didn't rear his dumb head one more time, however. Near the end of the set, Jeff finally picked up the 12-string guitar he had on stage with him, started Pot Kettle Black and of course had an almost immediate lyric flub — which he cursed himself for routinely making and explained that was why he never plays that one — and some of us tried to help him out with the right words. Would you believe the Hijacker actually had the nerve to turn around at that point and shush me for singing too loudly? Yep, that actually happened (I gave him the finger). Fortunately for us all, a couple of songs later Jeff invited support act Elizabeth Moen and her duo partner Gus Martini out for the traditional tour-ending collaboration. It was, naturally, on the song California Stars and despite the fact that they had apparently only gotten word of this invitation a few hours prior, Moen and Martini certainly did fine on backing vocals and sent us on our separate ways with a fond memory — allowing us to cast the Hijacker out of our minds for the most part. Phew!

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

Infinite Surprise

new song-This Is How It Ends

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

Some Birds

Sunlight Ends

Evergreen

Company In My Back

new song-Ain't It A Shame

Everlasting Everything

Opaline

How To Fight Loneliness

One Wing

Even I Can See

Guaranteed

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Either Way

Annihilation

Hummingbird

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Pot Kettle Black

Falling Apart (Right Now)

California Stars (w/Elizabeth Moen and Gus Martini on backing vocals)

Let me just say up top that I think I finally put my finger on why I've felt slightly uneasy, or at least not quite at home, since first setting foot in the Guild Theatre a couple of nights ago. And it's not the reserved seat/general admission standing situation I mentioned in my recap of Night 1. Those of us who bought GA tickets and wound up standing behind the five rows of seats on the main floor had a great view and even if we wanted to be closer to the stage or thought we would be, there really wasn't too much to complain about on that front.

So what's the issue with a room I've seen more than a few people cite as a new favorite in the area? After all, it's nice and clean (having just reopened in 2022 after a $35 million renovation), quite intimate (between 200 and 500, depending on setup) and has pristine sound (anchored by a Meyer Sound PA system). It sounds antithetical that such a venue might not be preferred for a relatively quiet acoustic show like Jeff's, but that intimacy and sound quality can create what I'll call a singing-versus-silence conflict in which apparently any noise — from quiet singing along to whispering to sounds from the bar — is amplified and gets under some people's skin. To me, it's led to a kind of underlying tension that has made some fearful of making any kind of sound whatsoever and magnified the difference between those who like to enjoy a show by participating (appropriately, of course) and those who would rather the performance be more of a recital, whether because they're trying to record it or just don't care to hear anything but the performer.

Now I will readily admit that I fall on the side of singing and crowd participation in general (again, appropriately of course), so if you don't, we can agree to disagree. But there have definitely been some uptight people over the first two nights of this three-night run who have made those of us who might like to participate a bit feel like we've somehow done something wrong. Such as the older gentleman seated in one of the rows of chairs who turned around and hissed, "Who's singing?" at a group of us GA standers before getting up and moving over to an empty seat a little further down the row. Whether that was aimed at me or somebody else, I don't know. But it made for kind of a sterile vibe at times, which was a bummer.

Jeff may have even sensed as much as the show went on, as he remarked after a mini singalong broke out during New Madrid. "Nice to hear you sing along, even though I didn't ask for it," he said. "I hear a lot of things when the room's this quiet. It's disconcerting." Near the end of the show, when he tried to get the crowd to join him on the woo/growl part during Lou Reed Was My Babysitter, the first attempt was so lame that he had to pause, shake his head and remark in part, "That was pathetic. ... Get the defibrillators out."

Fortunately Jeff's visits to Banter Corner were amusingly cringeworthy tonight, despite the fact that he said almost nothing at all for nearly the first half of the show, which included the surprising On And On And On (for the first time on this run) and new song Now And Then (which I noticed included the lyric, "I let it play all the way through Train In Vain..."). When he finally did start chatting, Jeff explained his initial reticence as an attempt to strike a balance with the first night's show. "I talked a lot last night," Jeff said. "And I think I've already played as many songs as I played last night, so I'm just gonna talk the rest of the night so we don't cheat last night's audience out of anything. ... Some people say it doesn't matter, and they're right."

But as Jeff continued, he said he had tried to think of some different stories to tell tonight and that led to, well, a tale about when he "shit my pants." The story Jeff told basically involved a time in the early days of Wilco's touring history when the band played at a university gymnasium and Jeff went outside for one more smoke before the show. As Jeff explained it, in those days of smoking and drug taking, often when you would have one more cigarette, you would have to take a shit. But Jeff couldn''t get back into the facility in time, apparently, and wound up shitting himself. Just then a group of fans spotted him and approached for a quick chat and a picture, which he obliged despite the awkward situation. "So some of you might a picture of me with shit in my pants," Jeff deadpanned. "Anytime you see a picture of me from back in the day, think about that. It's possible."

It wouldn't be the last bodily function Jeff would discuss, much to the chagrin of some in the audience. He completed a trifecta of sorts when he had guitar tech Ashwin bring out his water bottle so he could take a swig. He told the crowd that he almost never drank anything on stage because it usually made him have to pee immediately. OK, peeing...check. Then Jeff decided to complete the Bodily Function Banter by sharing that he was currently "on a medication that makes my belches smell like sewage. If you smell something that's almost ungodly, that's me." And burping...check.

I can't remember if it was this, uh, spurt or another that caused Jeff to say that if his wife had been there right then, she would have asked if he was having an episode — a line Tweedy Show viewers are well acquainted with — but in any case, he had a couple more extended trips to Banter Corner. One was a version of the extended story he has been telling before An Empty Corner, which I think he sensed was getting a bit unwieldy, especially in the same venue for the second night in a row. But he addressed one heckler by saying in part that he felt compelled to give every audience the same amount every show. And of course, he almost immediately contradicted himself after that same audience member (I think?) requested Sunken Treasure in an annoying fashion. "Are you coming tomorrow night?" Jeff asked. "If you aren't, then I'm gonna play it then. That's how I roll. That's how I manage the crowds."

Ultimately, Jeff has been remarkably consistent on this tour in the show he puts on night in and night out. And yet he still manages to surprise, too, both in terms of his banter and the selection of songs he makes (he did, for example, grant an audience request for Natural Disaster, and followed it up with a nice 12-string performance of Cousin deep cut A Bowl And A Pudding). It will be interesting to see what the final night of the tour has in store tomorrow, and here's hoping the audience is a cool one. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way I do about participation and the like, but a little less uptightness would be welcome.

Here was the complete setlist for Night 2 in Menlo Park, as played:

The Universe

On And On And On

Guess Again

Ambulance

new song-Now And Then

Don't Forget

Radio King

Evicted

Should've Been In Love

Natural Disaster

A Bowl And A Pudding

Orphan

new song-Enough

An Empty Corner

Please Tell My Brother

New Madrid

You And I

Jesus, etc.

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Laminated Cat aka Not For The Season

A Lifetime To Find

Not that tonight was the last show on this meandering Jeff solo jaunt across America, but we have reached the last stop. After opening with a three-night stand in pastoral upstate New York nearly three weeks ago, Jeff kicked off another three-night mini-residency in this Northern California bedroom community that will bring the tour to a close. It's tempting to compare these bookend series of shows — and we'll have to see if he plays three nearly unique sets here the way he did in Woodstock at the start — but if Night 1 of this stint at the intimate Guild Theatre is any indication, then it will be a natural evolution and summation of this particular stage of Jeff's solo performance history.

One difference between the Bearsville Theater, where the tour began, and the Guild is that the former was almost exclusively a general admission standing situation, which meant that the diehard fans who attended all three shows pretty much wound up right along the front couple of rows each night — Chrissie Hynde be damned — and even Jeff couldn't help but comment on the relative familiarity of the audience from night to night. I had thought that the setup at the Bearsville Theater would be general admission seating for some reason, but it was nice to be able to stand and get up close if you wanted to.

That's what we thought we'd be able to do at the Guild, but when we got in tonight we discovered that what we thought had been an open GA floor plan when we bought the tickets ended up being mostly filled with chairs that were reserved. More than a few folks who had bought GA tickets were confused at the setup because other shows at the venue have had an open GA floor and we didn't remember the floor plan showing reserved seats initially. But it wound up that the folks with GA tickets had to stand behind a row of chairs up on a slightly elevated level (or, I guess, upstairs in the balcony), with an additional four rows of chairs set up on a lower level directly in front of the stage. The reserved seats on the floor were about double the price of the GA tickets, so it made sense that those were the "best" seats, but it was nonetheless still a surprise at first.

At any rate, the show itself resembled more of what Jeff had done at the beginning of this run with a few new songs sprinkled in near the start. He had almost completely abandoned those newer songs as the tour went on and he was playing in a different city every night, so it was nice to have them back tonight with the sprawling Feel Free kicking the night off and KC Rain following a few songs later. Other songs in the first half of the set included several of the ones that Jeff has leaned into regularly as the tour has gone on, among them An Empty Corner (which was, as usual, preceded by Jeff's ever-lengthening tales of being a teenage liquor store employee) as well as Gwendolyn and Having Been Is No Way To Be.

As I've often maintained with Jeff's solo performances, it can be an audience that ultimately determines how a show will go — for better or worse — and I would have to say that tonight's group was a little on the sedate side. Obviously there were plenty of fans, and some dedicated ones at that, but they were almost too polite. Jeff even commented on it a couple of times early on, such as when he first checked in — "How's everybody doing? You're so quiet I hardly know you're here" — which led to a brief burst of applause, to which Jeff replied, "That wasn't a plea for any feedback. I like it when I forget you're here. I can't see you at all. I'm picturing an extremely young crowd..." When that drew some chuckles from the mostly middle-aged assemblage, Jeff deadpanned, "I don't know why that's funny." A bit later, after asking if everybody was having a good time, Jeff quipped, "I know it's a Monday night, but it really feels like a Tuesday night crowd. There's definitely some Tuesday energy here." Whether or not Jeff sensed a weirder-than-usual vibe from this audience, he couldn't help but wryly observe that the almost-chantlike recitation of the chorus during I Am Trying To Break Your Heart reminded him of something disturbing. "You sound like a cult," Jeff said afterward. "Seriously, that was haunting. Can we hear that again? I can hear the track suits."

We did ultimately have one audience member to thank for pushing Jeff in perhaps a slightly different direction than he planned to go. After Jeff switched guitars and was trying to figure out what to play next — asking himself but out loud, "What do I play in this tuning?" — a guy seated near the front suggested Cars Can't Escape. Jeff countered, saying, "No, it's standard tuning." Then the guitar nerdery started to go over my head when the guy said something about presumably a certain chord being "a hard reach" in whatever tuning they were talking about and from that point on, it seemed like he was speaking Jeff's language. Jeff proceeded to switch back to the guitar he had been using and said, "I'll show you..." and so we all got to hear Cars for the first time in nearly a year.

Guitar usage, or the potential lack thereof, also accounted for the trio of songs — Country Song Upside-Down, Kamera and Meant To Be — that Jeff played on a 12-string guitar in the back half of the 92-minute set. He reiterated the observation he has made most nights recently about learning on this tour that when he doesn't use every instrument he has on stage with him, "people get pissed. ... I was gonna let that be Chekhov's 12 string. I love how many people get that joke. I'm trying to raise the discourse around here."

In terms of other visits to Banter Corner, Jeff of course had a little fun with someone in the first couple rows of seats who got up about halfway through the set to apparently use the restroom. "Where are you going, Tinkletown?" Jeff asked playfully. "I'll wait. Anyone else have to go? I wasn't planning on pulling this show over this early." Another person in the pricey seats took the opportunity just then to ask Jeff to "talk about the pandemic." After some groans from fellow audience members, the guy clarified that he wanted Jeff to talk about The Tweedy Show and made an earnest comment about how it had really helped him and many other people get through that time. Jeff thanked him, and informed anyone in the crowd who might not know that "a lot of (the episodes) are archived on my wife's Instagram if you want to hang out with my family in the past and watch us talk bullshit and play covers. We learned, like, a thousand songs."

One final moment of levity came near the end of the show when a guy in the balcony loudly yelled out a request for "Jesus, Inc." Jeff looked up in that direction quizzically for a second and repeated the incorrect song title in a questioning manner, but ultimately didn't grant the wish. Instead, he said, "Here's what you were gonna request — a new song," before launching into Lou Reed Was My Babysitter, which not only was a better choice for that particular point in the show, but also provided a little jolt of energy to the relatively placid proceedings before Jeff headed off stage for good two songs later.

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 1 in Menlo Park:

new song-Feel Free

Normal American Kids

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

new song-KC Rain

An Empty Corner

Impossible Germany

I Am My Mother

I Know What It's Like

Box Full Of Letters (waltz arrangement)

Family Ghost

Cars Can't Escape

Whole Love

Dawned On Me

Country Song Upside-Down

Kamera

Meant To Be

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

You Are Not Alone

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect before we were allowed into the intimate confines of the Sweetwater Music Hall for tonight's "benefit gala" that was also another stop on Jeff's current solo jaunt across the country. I'm reasonably certain that none of the other shows on this run have featured tickets starting at $265 per person for general admission standing room and increasing to over $1000 for special seats and tables for four (as per the event's own press release) or had a live auction for several VIP concert experiences and a no-longer-produced Tweedy Martin 00-DB acoustic guitar that raised thousands more dollars to benefit the non-profit arts organization for which the Sweetwater venue is the namesake.

With those four-top tables of big spenders, er, generous contributors taking up most of the floor area in front of the stage, leaving the GA folks to cram in on the sides and by the back bar, the capacity of the already-small room was probably reduced to about 175 total. And if I had to hazard a guess, maybe half of those people were actual fans of Jeff and/or Wilco as opposed to more general Sweetwater supporters. All of which made it unlikely that this was going to be a show that featured anything but a pretty run-of-the-mill setlist or basic banter.

But the thing about Jeff's solo shows is that, in my opinion, there is always something that makes them worth attending if only because every audience is different and you never know what interesting or funny or cringe-worthy thing might happen because of some random interaction or utterance. So even though Jeff started the show tonight with the identical pair of songs he opened with at the previous night's show in Grass Valley, joking that he was trying to play the exact same set he had there because he was sure there was plenty of crossover between the two audiences, it didn't take long before there were some entertaining goings-on.

If you've seen enough of Jeff's solo performances, you wouldn't have been surprised that, in such a setting, most of his early banter during the 90-minute set centered on the various ways he felt uncomfortable and was trying to find his footing. Almost immediately, he took issue with the television at the back bar showing him on stage — which was sort of ridiculous given how small the room was. "I'm on TV back there, and it's freaking me out," he said after his opening number. "Is there something else we can put on? I honestly had no idea I looked like that. I've avoided mirrors for decades." Then he introduced Evergreen by saying, "I'm gonna play a song about my dead dad because it's Saturday night. These are the most festive songs I have." And then after thanking whomever mercifully turned off the TV, Jeff said he was "wracking my brain for songs that would fit this environment. I've played a lot of outdoor festivals and this is similar."

Jeff still seemed to be finding his footing during the middle part of the set when he put on a harmonica rack before Via Chicago and then preceded the song with an explanation of how he had been avoiding playing the harmonica on this tour because of his "unkempt" mustache and beard and how some of his facial hairs would get caught in the harmonica. If his eyes suddenly welled up with tears during the song, he said, that's what happened. But instead of starting the song, Jeff then got briefly distracted by the towers of canapés that some tables near the front had ordered — to be fair, we all were wondering what kind of snacks these triple-tiered stands that resembled what you might see during a high tea service contained — and commented on them before pronouncing this "the worst intro to this song I've ever done." Quipped Jeff afterward: "I'm the most transparent performer you've ever seen. It's like Bring Your Inner Dialogue To Work Day every day."

But some of the most amusing moments were still to come, such as when a guy at one of the tables right in front of Jeff got up and left between songs. I'm pretty sure it had been the same guy Jeff had sort of singled out early on in the show because of the way the guy had apparently been craning his neck, which caused Jeff to say he was worried about his alignment, asked if he was all right and suggested he might turn his chair a bit to make it a little easier to see. When that (same?) guy got up later, Jeff riffed on how after doing this for so many years, he could "pick out people having a bad time (like a lion does) a gazelle on the savanna." An entire audience could seemingly be enjoying themselves and, Jeff said, he could quickly identify the one person who wasn't.

It had sort of been a running joke during the set because of the "craning neck" guy that Jeff had joked that he would play at an angle to the microphone, which he occasionally demonstrated, and when the guy apparently left, Jeff did it again and briefly recalled a show when he had some trouble with an audience member who stood at an angle to the stage, in an almost-menacing way. For the record, that happened on June 23, 2023 on the second night of Jeff's four-night stint at Brooklyn Made when a heckler under the influence of something or another disrupted that show and eventually left or was escorted out (and later was asked not to come back for another show during that run).

Speaking of audiences, there were also a couple of other classic "types" that always seem to surface at a show like this. One was the lone "stalwart" clapper who stayed with it throughout most of Hummingbird and who apparently insisted they were right on beat, which Jeff agreed with but also pointed out that because of "how sound works," the sound of the clapping didn't reach him until "about eight milliseconds after." There was also the slightly inebriated woman also near the front, off to Jeff's right, who apparently kept making awkward comments throughout the show and in whose honor Jeff — as usual — broke out Passenger Side.

The house lights mysteriously came on right around then, after Jeff had made his usual comments about how this would usually be the point in the show when he would go off stage and wait for people to applaud for him to come back, causing him to look around quizzically and ask, "Is that the end of the show? My encores are as long as I want them to be." That drew some cheers and Jeff indeed played a few more numbers, but it wouldn't be too much longer before he finally did call it a night. Of course there was one more barb about the canapés — "You've hardly touched your food tower..." — and soon after that, the sound of one final shattered glass somewhere in the room provided Jeff with his cue to exit stage left. It was that kind of evening, I suppose.

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Mill Valley:

Story To Tell

Normal American Kids

Evergreen

Ambulance

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

You And I

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Dawned On Me

A Lifetime To Find

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

New Madrid

An Empty Corner

Hummingbird

Impossible Germany

Passenger Side

Jesus, etc.

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

California Stars

Not that I'm speaking from any kind of personal experience, but I can imagine that for some performers, building a rapport with a live audience isn't necessarily first and foremost in their minds. I mean, of course you want people to respond favorably to you, but once you develop a set of material you're confident in and the lights go down and everything fades to black, you try to present that set to the people in front of you to the best of your ability and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. But I guess it always helps when an audience seems to "get" you, perhaps even surprising you at times with their feedback and participation.

In Jeff's case, making his début in this small bedroom community about an hour northeast of Sacramento, that helped elevate what might have otherwise been a fairly routine or even potentially awkward evening into a pretty fun and memorable one.

It started from the jump with Jeff's opening salvo of Story To Tell and Normal American Kids, the latter played for the first time on this solo run and for the first time in well over a year. The crowd at the 500-seat Center For The Arts demonstrated its attention to the lyrics of both songs by laughing at many of the humorous lines (which, trust me, does not always happen). And that fact was not lost on Jeff, even though he might have been a bit skeptical at first.

"I can't see you, but you sound like a subversive bunch," he said after NAK. "I didn't know what to expect. ... You're laughing at things that nobody laughs at, things I think are funny but no one else does. That kind of acceptance makes me feel weird. I depend on a certain separation between my intent and how it's perceived, so I don't know if this is gonna work."

Gradually, though, Jeff seemed to be won over. The first half of the set turned into a de facto greatest hits of his banter and stories from the past couple of years, including a lengthy version of the story about his days as a teenage liquor store manager before An Empty Corner (during which, incidentally, he was discussing how his employers once burned down one of their stores and Jeff amusingly uttered the line, "I didn't start the fire," before realizing what had come out of his mouth and, with a wry smile, joking to his crew offstage to note that "Somebody should write a song about that.") He also briefly discussed the origins of Gwendolyn, talked about learning how some people get mad when he doesn't use all the guitars he has on stage (including calling his unused harmonicas "Chekhov's harmonicas," a remark which I finally had to ask someone to explain to me) before switching to a 12-string instrument for the only time to play Country Song Upside-Down, and got a healthy laugh at the story about modifying the lyric in Guaranteed.

The Grass Valley crowd really seemed to win points with Jeff a little later in the 94-minute set by singing along properly to California Stars, which Jeff dedicated sweetly to the late Phil Lesh with whom he and Nels Cline performed during a special "Philco" set a little over two years ago at the inaugural Sacred Rose Festival in Chicago. In his brief comments, Jeff said that Lesh had been "lovely" and that "nobody played bass like him, though people tried." Jeff added that they played California Stars with Lesh during that Philco set, which was the reason for his dedication (even though further research reveals they actually didn't play the song that night). Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

Even when there was something that probably annoyed him, Jeff played it off in a humorous fashion — like when he gently teased someone in the front row about making noise while apparently unwrapping a cookie during Radio King. "You couldn't eat before the show? Did you bring enough for everybody?" Jeff joked good-naturedly. "Whoever wrapped that cookie did a hell of a job. It took you about a verse and a half (to get it open). Meanwhile, I'm up here racking my brain for lyrics. Can you do me a favor? Can you not wrap it back up if you're not done?" Then as he was gently strumming the opening chords to the next song and still sort of dealing with the cookie issue, someone yelled out in recognition, "New Madrid!" and someone else (I think) started to sing the opening line. To which Jeff shot back with an amused smile, "You wanna sing it? You want a piece of this?"

The cookie subplot resurfaced a few songs later when the guy who had been chided returned with a cookie and dropped it at Jeff's feet. Jeff picked it up, observed that it was a peanut butter cookie and gave the guy one more bit of grief, asking "What if I had the peanut allergy? Can you imagine...that'd be the worst rock death of all time."

And that was basically the vibe of the show: a performer and his audience more or less simpatico. It's funny that I can barely even get to the delightfully surprising nugget that was Acuff-Rose — Jeff hadn't played it live in more than five years — in this recap because there was so much back-and-forth with the crowd that I wanted to mention. Like when Jeff once again recalled how he and the audience had "hit it off right away" and characterized the relationship as "besties." Or how the crowd nailed the "Whoo!" part on Lou Reed Was My Babysitter right away, which seemed to genuinely surprise Jeff and caused him to say that "you guys really are a professional audience." All in all, it made for an entertaining evening in Gold Rush country.

Here was the complete setlist, as played:

Story To Tell

Normal American Kids

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

An Empty Corner

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

County Song Upside-Down

Guaranteed

Ambulance

You And I

Radio King

New Madrid

A Lifetime To Find

Impossible Germany

Family Ghost

California Stars (dedicated to Phil Lesh)

Acuff-Rose

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Jesus, etc.

Laminated Cat aka Not For The Season

I'm The Man Who Loves You