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Just doing the requisite housekeeping on this one, since I wasn't there (but boy, how I would have loved to have been). On the off night before their scheduled gig in Dallas the following evening, apparently most of the band decided on a whim to play a set at a local bar's open mic night. According to a report on setlist.fm and confirmed by the good folks at Wilcoworld, Pat was not present. Anyway, it's nice to know that Wilco can still do random stuff like this from time to time. Perhaps it was because it's release week for Cousin and all sorts of hijinks are on the table — althou

After an all-too-short break following a month-long European tour, Wilco are back on American soil, back on the road again and back to business as the summer of 2023 turns into autumn. But although they might be back in this cruel country (wink, wink), the band reached another inflection point in its touring history with tonight's tour kickoff show in Tulsa — if the drumhead on Glenn's kick drum featuring the flower artwork of Azuma Makoto was any indication. In other words, let the Cousin era begin. OK, OK...so maybe the first show of said era didn't really look all that different

I shall look for Tatlock and Jim O'Rourke to be living side by side in the remote Japanese countryside in, say, three years time...

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

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

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

I did not know that! I will have to quiz her about her time there next time we meet, and about pan boxty too! Still one of my fave student union shows! Ah, La Jolla...kind enough to set up a "Line Starts Here" sign for me/us as well...

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

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

I’m sure someone will find sufficient video clips and whatnot online to deduce what’s taken place. I’m awaiting the day, as forecast by the pandemic, when no one has to set foot out of their house at all and get to a gig. We’ll just live stream it all on demand replay-style, and no one shall have to endure the post-show descriptions of some lunatic. And as for getting the date format “correct,” I believe that’s why I started doing the thread titles (trying to come up with a consistent format) that way in the first place! To satisfy bloody non-Yankees!

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the info/confirmation on that!

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

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

The 30th of August 2023...this will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi, it will soon see the end of the Rebellion. Wait, that's not right. The 30th of August 2023...a date which will live in infamy. Yikes, nothing anywhere near that dire. The 30th of August 2023...another Wilco Wednesday, the band's first show in the British capital in more than four years and another pivot point as Jeff and his bandmates head into the home stretch of this current European tour. OK, I think we finally got it. Oh, and it might also have been the 46th anniversary of the arrival o

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

Yes! Thank youuuuu for sharing!

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

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

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

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

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