Wilco -- 27/9/10, Berlin, Germany

[bböp]

Not much time to write tonight, and an early wakeup call to boot, so I'll just say that this was a pretty fun and great-sounding show until things sort of went off the rails in the encore.

 

The camera scourge returned in a big way. Jeff apparently had to take the camera (or phone) of someone in the front row during the main set. He came over and returned it when he came back out for the encore, but the guy must have started taking pictures again because before Jeff could even start singing Hummingbird, he went back over and had an argument with the guy. It was a weird scene, and not one that I could see or hear myself so I'm hesitant to go into too much detail.

 

But it was evident that Jeff was pissed off at this guy -- a couple of crew members even came out to try to help Jeff -- and it sort of made for a weird moment went he went over to have words with the guy a second time because the band sort of had to do an extended intro for Hummingbird.

 

After the song, Jeff apologized for the distraction but then went on to say that the band had asked nicely for people not to take photos and then he pointed out one or two other people in the crowd who were apparently taking photos or shooting video right at that moment. Jeff pointed at one guy in particular and asked if he didn't hear him or couldn't understand him, but ultimately he just sort of gave up, muttered something and finished the show.

 

What is wrong with people? Between the camera people, some obnoxiously loud Americans and the staid Germans (not all of them, but definitely some), it was definitely kind of an unsettling crowd tonight.

 

Anyway, I heard that at least one song -- Can't Stand It -- was cut from the printed setlist. And it seemed like at least one more got cut at the end of the encore (Monday?) because Nels had just strapped on another guitar when Jeff waved good night for real. Too bad, because it had been an enjoyable show for the most part. *Always* great to hear Magazine. And Hell Is Chrome and Sonny Feeling were played for the first time on this tour, I think.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played:

 

—"The Price Is Right" theme music intro—

Wilco (the song)

Bull Black Nova

Hell Is Chrome

IATTBYH>

One Wing

You Are My Face>

A Shot in the Arm

Poor Places>

Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement; Nels on electric)

Impossible Germany

Via Chicago

Sonny Feeling (natch )

Jesus, etc.

A Magazine Called Sunset

Handshake Drugs

You Never Know

Hate It Here

Theologians

I'm The Man Who Loves You

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

Hummingbird

California Stars

Walken

Heavy Metal Drummer

[H.Stone]

Sonny Feeling (natch )

 

Yeah! It certainly was the most likely place for it to show up, and it sounds like it showed up while the winds really were less angry.

 

That sucks about the camera issue. So after having it confiscated and then returned, the guy resumed taking photos/video? So he thought having the camera returned was...permission to resume taking photos? Well, hopefully Prague will bring it for the final show of the tour. I can't remember: are you going to be in Milwaukee on Saturday?

[pillowy star]

Sorry about the disrupted show, Paul.

 

So it's indeed the band that doesn't want people to take photos anymore? Hm......

[sonnyfeeling]

Sorry about the disrupted show, Paul.

 

So it's indeed the band that doesn't want people to take photos anymore? Hm......

 

I think it's actually the band that doesn't want half the audience paying more attention to their cameras and phones than to the performance. I write about tech for a living, so I love these devices for the things they do. But I think they have a dark side too. I would find it pretty disconcerting as an artist if a large part of my audience were holding something in front of their face or typing text into a phone while I was pouring my heart out.

[nalafej]

I think it's actually the band that doesn't want half the audience paying more attention to their cameras and phones than to the performance. I write about tech for a living, so I love these devices for the things they do. But I think they have a dark side too. I would find it pretty disconcerting as an artist if a large part of my audience were holding something in front of their face or typing text into a phone while I was pouring my heart out.

 

I heard jeff was quoted in NYT this weekend on the camera/video at the concert trend. Did anybody catch it?

[Magnetized]

I heard jeff was quoted in NYT this weekend on the camera/video at the concert trend. Did anybody catch it?

 

It was actually in the Wall Street Journal--here's a link to the article: http://online.wsj.co...Tabs%3Darticle. I'm not sure how long the WSJ keeps free content up on its site, so I saved a copy in Word. If anyone wants it, PM me and I'll send it. The specific Jeff contributions are the following:

 

. . . .Some bands, including the venerated rock groups Wilco and the Black Crowes, are asking their fans to go cold turkey on taking videos and photos at concerts. In movie houses, such edicts are meant to fight piracy and copyright infringement. In the music industry, where that ship has already sailed, these new policies are more about preserving the tribal atmosphere of a concert. . . .

 

 

Jeff Tweedy appreciates his tech-savvy fans. After all, they've made his band Wilco a going concern for more than 15 years. Like the Black Crowes, Wilco allows fans to make audio recordings at concerts and trade them online, for free. But video cameras, especially right up front, bother him. He says there's something more at stake than just distracting the lead singer (which is "just rude"). "I think you're surrendering your own memory to a very imperfect medium," he says. "Our memories are imperfect to begin with but that's what's beautiful about it."

 

Last winter, Mr. Tweedy took his family to see the illusionist Criss Angel. At the Las Vegas performance, recording devices of every kind were prohibited, enforced with a pat-down of audience members filing in. Inspired, Mr. Tweedy encouraged his band to institute its own no-cameras policy (minus the frisking).

 

"My sense of indignation was really roused quite a few nights," he says. "Once there was an established set of rules, I could stop talking about it during the shows."

 

The band posts signs inside venues and delivers an announcement over the public address system before show time. A robotic pre-recorded voice informs the audience that Wilco welcomes audio recording, singing along, shouting requests between songs and "general merriment." But "to avoid ending your evening with Wilco prematurely," it says, keep your cameraphone stowed. The venue's security guards take over from there, usually targeting transgressors with a flashlight beam to the face.

 

Mr. Tweedy says so far most crowds are policing themselves, and that it's paying off: "I honestly feel the crowd's engagement with the show. There's a more audible kind of reaction to different musical moments, a kind of intangible energy." . . . .

[Magnetized]

In searching for the article above, I came upon this review from Der Tagesspiegel: http://www.tagesspie...n/1944396.html. Unfortunately, I don't speak a word of German, so I ran the article through Google translator and got a pretty hilarious translation. Some of it's incomprehensible, but you get a general sense that they liked the second half of the show better than the first. No mention of the cellphone incident, unless the translator tool missed that completely:

 

Long Wilco disappointed at her performance at the Admiral's Palace on Monday and played without fire and passion. But driven by their fans, the U.S. band from Chicago but later turned on yet.

 

The palace of the Admiral Theatre stage is crammed with lots of stuff: amplifiers, microphones, effect pedals, monitor boxes, keyboards, drums and a huge arsenal of guitars. After a brief intro trötendem are the musicians from Wilco in between, to get started with the song "Wilco (The Song)" from the recent album, "Wilco." While on the board of the instrumental background a bit reminiscent of Velvet Underground, in today's concert version sounds more like the Geriffe from the early Kinks. Jeff Tweedy in obligate

Jean Jacket thrashes in a red Rickenbacker guitar and sings "Wilco love you!" It is a love that is returned by the fans in the sold-out theater with orkanartigem jubilation.

 

This is reminiscent of the fans of a football club, who cheer their club of passionate loyalty and with the same vehemence, when he had not played so well. Too disjointed, too confusing, the interplay, leaked balls do not arrive. There are no fire, passion, enthusiasm. And Tweedy sings to himself. Three parallel play guitar solos, anpsychedelisiertes racking, but it does not ignite, appears too rigid, remains expressionless.

 

Nevertheless, welcome the audience after each song the first few bars with almost touching stubborn enthusiasm. As in soccer: we keep our society, there must go but something else. But let not. What it may be that this band from Chicago who was always so much more exciting live than on record, this time so erratic, therefore, is that the cacophonous outbursts from warm harmony nerves this time rather than delight? Is it the bad sound, which at least comes up on the balcony unpleasant metallic clatter? Or is it the dignified ambience with theater-style seating that no real rock 'n' roll feeling can pay the players.

 

But the fans remain adamant. A disappointing deadpan version of "A Shot In The Arm" from 1999's "Summer Teeth" they cheer just as vehemently as the very zerkrachte coda at the end of the pretty Beatles harmonies of "Poor Places" from the album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" from the 2002. Or to be the destruction of the fine acoustic-guitar ballad "Via Chicago" by much, or as beautiful noise alienating middle attack, where the actual melody, instead of letting them shine through even under the desert Gekrache gently, zerpoltert mercilessly.

 

But as always happens in football, too, that the stable grain enhancement by the loyal fans can turn a boring game happen again, even here the amazing thing: after about an hour greeted by a cheerful-tempered Jeff Tweedy, the audience, and we thank you kindly, that all have come. And in the second half, it is still a very good game. "Jesus, Etc.." bursting with passion, and the band will miraculously be a fantastic harmony. The tall

Guitarist Nels Kline, who has so far been disappointing threshing empty phrases, playing exquisite lap steel licks. Bassist John Stirrat, besides Tweedy single "Ur-Wilco," sings soulful second voices, Glen Kotche drives with pounding drums, and the

experienced multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone garnished alternately with various guitars and keyboards.

 

Perhaps the most beautiful piece of the evening is "Hate It Here" from the album "Sky Blue Sky" (2007) with groovy swinging soul and wonderfully-swallow Hammond organ by Mikael Jorgensen, and Tweedy's a touching song in normal and in Fistellage. "Thanks for

standing ".., he says enthusiastically, as have the people in the stalls, it no longer held in their seats now are all And now the fun begins: with a stunning version of" Theologians "where Tweedy heavily inspired by John Lennon's voice , as in "I'm

The Man Who Loves You "with a heavy Gefunke. In the bonus game, the wonderful" California Stars "from the album" Mermaid Avenue "for the Wilco set to music with Billy Bragg previously unpublished texts of American folk legend Woody Guthrie.

 

"Walken" beleiht elegant Fats Domino's "I'm Walking", with New Orleans R & B to move, ending in a trained on Little Feat Boogie orgy with hot slide guitar. Although Wilco concerts in Berlin have been better had this too, at least in the second half, a true joy.

[Chinese Apple]

*Always* great to hear Magazine.

 

Did he dedicate Sunset to you? I thought right before he played it, JT said "It's all your fault, Paul."

 

About the fan altercation, apparently, the fan told JT: "I bought every album you guys have ever made," by way of justification. Maybe they all wish they could have their cameras personally confiscated by El Tweedy, and then have him give a personal shout out to them at a later concert. ;-)

 

I've heard Impossible Germany played live many, many times, but last night Nels's solo gave me a piloerection. It sounded haunting and wistful, for some reason. Maybe it was the acoustics.

[bböp]

Did he dedicate Sunset to you? I thought right before he played it, JT said "It's all your fault, Paul."

 

Perhaps I might have entered a request for that one...

 

Don't really have time to get into it right now, but the other thing about the guy that Jeff had the incident(s) with was that he had already been a distraction earlier in the show when he literally walked across the front row during a song and proceeded to stop and snap photos of each band member. So the guy had already raised Jeff's ire...

[pillowy star]

Here is another article from the same newspaper, this time it's apparently the best band in the world *rolleyes*, I guess Wilco will never get the whole world behind them, no matter how fantastic they are:

 

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/trost-und-ekstase/1944528.html

[The Inside of Outside]

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/trost-und-ekstase/1944528.html

 

So, not being able to read German, I put the article into Google translator, and got this:

 

German to English translation

Jörg wonder it is perhaps the best band in the world: Wilco delight in Berlin Admiral Palace.

 

If you try to repeat the pleasure of a unique experience, one always runs the risk to be disappointed. Hence had the concert by Wilco really all have to stay home, who were three years ago, witness their incredible presence in the boiler house. Impossible to preserve the perfection and intensity, right?

 

The sextet from Chicago takes on the challenge, even if the conditions are in the sold Admiralspalast their controlled less conducive to ecstasy: The cabin layout of the auditorium spark from experience not to so easily. But even when programmatic opener "Wilco (The Band)" make clear that this is not an evening to hang out in the theater chair. The rumbling bass drum maelstrom reminiscent of the angry minimalism of Velvet Underground, the three-guitar armada into the scene, Jeff Tweedy voiced fervently a life training for the fans: If you sometimes bad is, listen to our songs, and you will be comforted.

 

Sounds pretentious, but it is not. For each of the two dozen songs, sung the Wilco in two hours, is a great day for pop music. Since there are sun-drenched West Coast psychedelia like "You Are My Face", the entire length of the Midwest in waidwunden vocal harmonies capturing Americana such as "One Wing", urban angegroovte guitar Howler as "Bull Black & White" or the country Schnurre "Via Chicago" dive in. in their lovely drummer Glenn Kotche Geschunkel with infernal hammering, while Tweedy weiterschmalzt unmoved.

More about

 

* Other thoughts: Wilco come late to tours

 

And there are "Impossible Germany", a blazing ballad, guitarist Nels Cline at which soars solierend to such a gorgeous combination of sounds that it pulls people from their seats. Cline is an example of the integrative power of the band: used to be a the narcissism prone Experimentalfrickler, he has developed since his Wilco join six years ago, the team player that are incomprehensible Can not demonstrate in every song needs, but also a less experienced colleagues Tweedy can be as shiny side.

 

As a guitarist Jeff Tweedy may not belong to the world's best, but what a great singer, he has become. His voice has a dark, velvety sheen and natural authority of great rock voices. More than once, you have to go to Michael Stipe, or think the late John Lennon. How ever Wilco idiosyncratic what-if-awaken associations: Had the Beatles not separated in 1970, but Paul McCartney replaced and gained an outstanding guitarist and a keyboardist, she had the mid-seventies can sound a bit like Wilco 2010th So like the best band in the world.

 

That this sometimes nerve shows it almost makes more gratifying: After an hour, the Stalking Jeff Tweedy affable and sends a message of greeting to his persistent calling between fellow countrymen: "We love you American followers. But we came here to play for Germans. "Finally, he trades quips with a front of the stage, the film boldly ignore ban guest what he verhagelt a little humor.

 

After the addition of cracker "Heavy Metal Drummer" Cline is already strapped to the next guitar, but Tweedy is the signal for departure. Regardless, this exceptional concert tolerate even a minimal disharmonious end. Jörg miracle

 

Hilarious. Thought I was reading a review by Lotti, without the ABBA references.

[Magnetized]

If you sometimes bad is, listen to our songs, and you will be comforted.

**************

urban angegroovte guitar Howler as "Bull Black & White"

***************

in their lovely drummer Glenn Kotche Geschunkel with infernal hammering

*****************

narcissism prone Experimentalfrickler,

*****************

After an hour, the Stalking Jeff Tweedy affable

 

Yes, I think Google translator is my new favorite toy! And then they sometimes get it spot on:

 

As a guitarist Jeff Tweedy may not belong to the world's best, but what a great singer, he has become. His voice has a dark, velvety sheen and natural authority of great rock voices. More than once, you have to go to Michael Stipe, or think the late John Lennon. How ever Wilco idiosyncratic what-if-awaken associations: Had the Beatles not separated in 1970, but Paul McCartney replaced and gained an outstanding guitarist and a keyboardist, she had the mid-seventies can sound a bit like Wilco 2010th So like the best band in the world.

[mdpoet]

 

Anyway, I heard that at least one song -- Can't Stand It -- was cut from the printed setlist. And it seemed like at least one more got cut at the end of the encore (Monday?) because Nels had just strapped on another guitar when Jeff waved good night for real. Too bad, because it had been an enjoyable show for the most part. *Always* great to hear Magazine. And Hell Is Chrome and Sonny Feeling were played for the first time on this tour, I think.

 

 

 

Sad to see this get cut by the time spent on the policing the crowd... but I have to hand it to lone dancer in the front row for most of the show, which lightened it up a bit.