Wilco — 9/18/12, Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe, NM

[sonnyfeeling]

Setlist:

 

01 - Poor Places

02 - Art of Almost

03 - I Might

04 - Sunken Treasure

05 - Company In My Back

06 - I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

07 - One Wing

08 - Black Moon

09 - Spiders (Kidsmoke)

10 - Impossible Germany

11 - Born Alone

12 - Hummingbird

13 - Handshake Drugs

14 - Shouldn't Be Ashamed

15 - Whole Love

16 - I'm Always In Love

17 - Dawned On Me

18 - Shot in the Arm

Encore:

19 - Via Chicago

20 - Heavy Metal Drummer

21 - Walken

22 - I'm the Man Who Loves You

23 - Jesus, Etc.

Encore:

24 - Can't Stand It

25 - Monday

26 - Outtasite (Outta Mind)

 

Here are my comments from the Just a Fan forum, cleaned up and expanded a bit. The above setlist is from the Wilcoworld.net Shows page. Note that they got the second encore wrong. Can't Stand It ends the first encore on their list, but I've changed the order to what was actually played. Very strange to have the first encore end with Jesus Etc. (No singalong, either.)

 

This is an amazing venue, built for a well-heeled crowd that pays very big bucks to see world-class performances of opera all summer long. They let us rabble in for a couple shows in September.

 

The sound was spectacular, and it was perfect weather for an indoor-outdoor venue. (There's a roof, but the sides are open, allowing a pleasant breeze through.)

 

The crowd took a while to warm up, but by midshow (ie, after Impossible Germany) they were on their feet and stayed there the whole time. Not a lot of obvious Wilco fans there, but an appreciative crowd, to be sure.

 

Some nice banter from Jeff, whose first words were "Nice place you got here." He also said "This leg of the tour is just getting started, but so far you guys are the best audience, and we played a hometown show just a couple days ago. Don't tell them back in Chicago, OK?"

 

We were in the front row, with the only thing separating us from the stage being a water feature about 18 inches from front to back and no more than an inch or two deep. I didn't think about this until Judy pointed it out later, but that layout meant no photographers at all, which means that the first three songs weren't a distraction as they are in so many other places. Tweedy commented on this layout, urging us all to stay away from "the moat" because it was filled with sulfuric acid. "I'm serious, he said. We're going to insist on a moat from now on and have that in our rider."

 

He also pointed out that the last time they played Santa Fe was right after the release of AM, at a little dive called Club Alegria. It no longer exists, but in its heyday it held probably 150 people and was in a very funky part of town.

 

I was surprised no Candyfloss given the opera setting.

 

Not a lot of chatter otherwise and although the performance was solid across the board the boys didn't show a lot of outward signs they were having fun. Just another night at the office ... er, opera.