Wilco -- 9/18/11, Montreal QC

[cracked & hooked]

I'm on the fence about whether I want to hear One Sunday Morning live. It's a good song, but I'm not entirely convinced that a 12-minute folk song is something I want or need to experience at a Wilco show.

 

How does it sound live?

I went in feeling similarly, but I was happy to be proven wrong. It was captivating and I was amazed at how they held the room through it. In fact, I think there were more people heading for the bathroom in the beginning of it than towards the end. I don't think it ran the full 12-minutes - I think they shortened the outro a bit.

 

The song has been slowly growing on me and hearing it live pretty much sealed the deal. It was very cool to see/hear how everyone contributes to it - much more apparent live than on the album, at least to me.

 

It was fairly stunning, to be honest.

[cracked & hooked]

Words fail, but I can tell you one thing for sure - this is a new Wilco.

 

This was my 23rd show and I have never seen them bring so much power, so much presence to the party. New songs exploded, old songs reborn. Balls-out wall of sound. Tight, tight, tight. LOUD, LOUD, LOUD. Cool to see different members shine a bit more than usual.

 

Wonderful, quiet, respectful crowd. I could kiss you all on the mouth! Jeff asked them to say something in French to which he replied "Sexy! I'm blushing... This is me blushing...that's how white I am."

 

Other banter, for those so inclined: not a ton:

• Um, chiding Glenn about not wanting to stand on his drums anymore and getting the whole crowd booing and goading him on. "He thinks we're going to be satisfied with the gong..." (I have a small video snippet of this)
  
• The bit about "spirit dove" - saying that lyric was the stupidest lyric ever written, but that Glenn started calling him Spirit Dove so he had to leave it. Glenn started making little wing-flapping motions to which Jeff replied "Asshole!" "That's your new nickname - Asshole."
  
• Oh, and this: After the opening notes of Rising Red Lung, some guy in the crowd yelled out "Play some rock and roll!" to which Jeff quickly and maybe somewhat angrily retorted "This IS rock and roll!"
  

 

We drove 12 hours round-trip for this and it was worth every mile. I had suggested via Twitter that it would be nice of them to play Standing O for my troubles and they totally freaking did. At least I'm going to pretend for the rest of my life that they played it for me. I love that song so much. It reminds me a lot of the music that I lived with and listened to in my early 20's. I just love it. And live? Give me a break. I lost my shit. (Apologies to the staid Canadians around me...)

 

So, YEAH! I feel so happy for them! They're in a really great place, psychobabbley.

 

P.S. The light show!

[bböp]

 

As far as selling the new record, I'm reasonably certain they're not going to break street date (or at least not by more than a day ), so I wouldn't expect to see it at the merch table for a few more days yet.

 

Not to quote myself, but forget what I said. I just heard from "a source" that apparently they're selling the new album at the show tonight in Boston...

[bobfrombob]

They were selling clear vinyl copies of the "I Might" single in Montreal - leftovers from Solid Sound. No copies of the LP on Sunday.

 

My partner is somewhat obsessed with the length of "One Sunday Morning" and she timed it (not to the second or anything) - it was about 8 or 9 minutes live.

 

Two fairly mindless observations:

 

- have I not been paying attention or has the position of Jeff’s mic moved? I seem to remember him always being centre stage but in Montreal, he seemed to be to my left and John seemed to be to my right – so the drums are in the centre but not Jeff

 

- maybe it was the angle I was sitting at but those were the longest pants I have ever seen Nels wear

[elephantstone]

so this show appears to be streaming on the "roadcase" available to facebook members? anyone able to rip this?