3/3/08- Mobile, AL (Mobile Civic Center)

[ImpossibleAlabama]

This was a great show. Just got in. The band must have played nearly 2 1/2 hours. I'm sure someone else will post a setlist later.

 

Mobile is notorious for lack of enthusiasm for shows and sometimes rowdy crowds. Tonight could not have been further from that. The crowd was great, a good portion of the audience stood for most of the show and were very enthused for the entire catalogue spanning setlist that was played. It sounds cliche, but the band was on fire. Nels performed one of his greatest solos yet for Impossible Germany (standing ovation).

 

The banter was at a minimum, but the band more than made up for it by tearing through song after song.

 

This was Wilco's first time in Mobile, but I'm hoping the reception and participation of the crowd will warrant a later date.

 

The Total Pro's were around and in fine form, and the camera crew was spread about nicely, I'm sure they came away with some great footage.

 

John Doe was better than I anticipated (no disrespect to John Doe, just not that familiar w/ his catalogue) They did a Joni Mitchell cover and Nels came out for "Gimme Shelter"

[ImpossibleAlabama]

well, i thought someone might post a setlist, ;-)

 

Here's what they played that I remember (in no particular order)

 

Airline to heaven

California Stars

Box Full of letters

Pick up the change (Jeff said he wanted to lower expectations for the rest of the set by playing this song)

Passenger side

Monday

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Kingpin

Muzzle of Bees

Hummingbird

Handshake Drugs

Wishful thinking

Theologians

You are my face

Impossible Germany (once again, absolutely incredible solo by Nels)

Side with the seeds

Hate it Here

Walken

What Light

Via Chicago

A Shot in the Arm

War on War

Jesus Etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

I'm the man who loves you

Pot Kettle Black

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Magazine called Sunset

 

maybe more word will come in from this show. there were people from all over Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, among others. there was also a really inebriated guy there from Michigan who, by the end of the set, was dancing like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. He was going around singing lyrics directly in the faces of complete strangers, i assume in case they forgot them.

[lamradio]

He was going around singing lyrics directly in the faces of complete strangers, i assume in case they forgot them.

 

That's funny stuff.

 

I don't believe this show sold out. Were their a lot of empty seats, or was it close to capacity?

[cryptique]

Pick up the change

Cool!

[Katya]

I'd never been to a Wilco show because they'd never been close enough for me to travel to see before. They were amazing -- now I know if they're in Atlanta again, I'll go that far to see them. It's just too bad "drunk rowdy guy" was sitting right next to me.

[watch me fall]

maybe more word will come in from this show. there were people from all over Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, among others. there was also a really inebriated guy there from Michigan who, by the end of the set, was dancing like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. He was going around singing lyrics directly in the faces of complete strangers, i assume in case they forgot them.

 

Looks like WITHIK has risen from the dead.

[IATTBYB]

there was also a really inebriated guy there from Michigan who, by the end of the set, was dancing like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. He was going around singing lyrics directly in the faces of complete strangers, i assume in case they forgot them.

For the record, I've never been to Mobile. But looking at that set-list, I wish I was there last night. And I was only slightly inebriated last night.

[cryptique]

there was also a really inebriated guy there from Michigan who, by the end of the set, was dancing like Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love.

Not it.

 

I have spent a lot of time in and around Mobile, however.

[ImpossibleAlabama]

That's funny stuff.

 

I don't believe this show sold out. Were their a lot of empty seats, or was it close to capacity?

 

 

Capacity was 1900 (or so). I read this morning they were 300 short of a sell-out. You really couldn't tell this was the case though. The balcony may have been less than full, but the floor level was very near capacity. I was surprised, Mobile very, very rarely gets decent shows. The majority of shows here are crap rock (Nickelback and their ilk). The last decent show was Ryan Adams at the Saenger Theater, and that turned out horribly. An overall terrible crowd, who talked heavily the whole time and didn't take to kindly to Ryan's brand of sarcasm.

 

I really hope last night's show helps put the word out that's it's possible to draw a good, respectful crowd in Mobile.

[sky blue bats]

Magazine called Sunset!!! I'm assuming it was not the last song but oh wow, that makes me very excited for houston!!!!

[SarahC]

Wishful Thinking!!!!

One of these days they will play it at a show I am at...

Dang it, Jeff.

[bwhite0421]

Magazine called Sunset!!! I'm assuming it was not the last song but oh wow, that makes me very excited for houston!!!!

 

i just wish they would start at 7:00 or 7:30 so we could at least have the possibility ,however remote, that they would play a 3 hour show. i really dislike that 11:00 curfew crap.

 

either way, with the horns and the kind of setlists and the video operations it should be 1 heckuva time.

 

cheers,

 

b

[sky blue bats]

last time in houston they went on at 9:00 sharp! i did not know there was a curfew in houston for a show inside?

[jimjiminy]

Magazine called Sunset!!!

That was what I requested online for the Ryman show. I don't know why, but it's one of my favorite songs. It's been a while since they've played that live, hasn't it?

[TheBestThereIs...]

That was what I requested online for the Ryman show. I don't know why, but it's one of my favorite songs. It's been a while since they've played that live, hasn't it?

 

 

 

You could tell Jeff doesn't really like this song. He prefaced the song by saying something along the lines of... "This is a B side song that you can only hear on the Internet. Most of you will want to go to the bathroom now. For some reason this is the most requested song on our website, but we can't figure out why. It's really not that good."

[bböp]

It's been a while since they've played that live, hasn't it?

 

They played it last Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

[Elixir Sue]

You could tell Jeff doesn't really like this song. He prefaced the song by saying something along the lines of... "This is a B side song that you can only hear on the Internet. Most of you will want to go to the bathroom now. For some reason this is the most requested song on our website, but we can't figure out why. It's really not that good."

I requested it for the Ryman show too. Damn it Jeff, it is a good song.

[bwhite0421]

last time in houston they went on at 9:00 sharp! i did not know there was a curfew in houston for a show inside?

 

you are correct that the pavilion shows outside HAVE to end by 11:00 or fines are incurred. Neil Young is the only I one that I personally know of that passed the cutoff point.

 

the bars/clubs usually don't even start the headliner until 10:00-11:00 but i don't know if it is official or just voluntary but the verizon theater seems to adhere to the 11:00 shutdown time.

 

b

[ImpossibleAlabama]

This is a review from the local paper, the Mobile Press-Register:

 

"To judge from Wilco's appearance at the Mobile Civic Center Theatre on Monday evening, rock music does have a future. And it will be loud.

 

That may be an oversimplification. But Wilco did prove a couple of significant points.

 

The first is that a band known more for wowing critics than for winning over a lucrative mainstream following can draw a respectable crowd in Mobile on a stormy weeknight. Word from the Civic Center was that about 1,600 patrons had turned out -- some 300 short of a sellout, but nothing to sneeze at.

 

 

The second was that the band could confront its audience with some challenging music and get away with it. In fact, as it churned through songs featuring dramatic shifts in volume, sometimes dissonant arrangements and occasional blasts of outright industrial racket, it was applauded at every turn.

 

Certainly Wilco is famous enough -- it played Mobile two nights after a plum showcase on "Saturday Night Live" -- that most of the audience knew what they were in for.

 

But from the opening song, "You Are My Face," it was clear that the live show was going to sharpen the songs, amp up the contrasts, rather than rounding off the edges of the studio versions.

 

And the crowd seemed not only to expect audacity, but to welcome it. They wanted, and got, music packed with contrasts.

 

Bandleader Jeff Tweedy's songs are rarely just pretty, but they usually have pretty passages. And so for every blast of noise there was a tender verse or a haunting melody around the corner; for every chamber-pop complexity of arrangement, there was a tasty segment of two- or three-guitar fireworks.

 

"Side With the Seeds," for example, paid off with a passage where Tweedy and lead guitarist Nels Cline delivered some instrumental harmonies that the Allman Brothers would have been pleased to call their own, and as if that wasn't enough, Cline got to blaze away solo on the song's coda.

 

(Cline had won much of the audience over before Wilco even took the stage: He had helped opening act John Doe finish up his set with a furious rendition of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter.")

 

Tweedy, who has at times been uncomfortable with the role of frontman, was a man of few words through the first half of the show, but they were amiable words.

 

He mentioned that this was the band's first time in Mobile, and -- with perhaps a teasing touch of skepticism -- referred to the city as "the home of Mardi Gras."

 

"I like that everybody said 'hi' to me when I was walking around today," he said.

 

All in all, the rapport between band and audience seemed warm and rewarding for both parties, perhaps never more so that during "Muzzle of Bees" when Tweedy pointed to the crowd while singing the line, "Half of it's you, half is me."

 

On the one side, an audience willing to reward a band for making challenging music. On the other, a band not too proud to scatter in crowd-pleasing fare like "California Stars," an adaptation of Woody Guthrie lyrics from the band's 1998 album "Mermaid Avenue."

 

Being a critical darling, as Wilco certainly is, can be a two-edged sword. But if a band can spend half a decade stubbornly going its own way only to arrive with a crowd, it must be doing something right. "

[cryptique]

Not bad.

[Katya]

Could you even really tell from that review if the reviewer liked the show though? I couldn't tell for sure.

[onmyknees]

Performance was TERRIFIC! For me, impossible to describe with out being explicit. The show was just the hard core pound f****** I needed . Many thanks to Wilco for visiting the fine city of Mobile. I am a better woman for having been there.