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AmericanaramA 22-Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY 7/27/13


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Here was Wilco's complete setlist, as played:

 

Born Alone

Sunken Treasure (Jeff on acoustic, no harmonica; Pat on keyboard)

Muzzle Of Bees

Hesitating Beauty

Hummingbird (dedicated to Matty [sp?] ..."this is his first rock show")

Impossible Germany

Art Of Almost

War On War

Dawned On Me

A Shot in the Arm

I Am The Cosmos [Chris Bell] (w/Beck on lead vocals and Roger Manning on backing vocals)

California Stars (w/Beck on acoustic guitar, harmonica and backing vocals)

Loser [beck] (w/Beck on lead vocals and Cibo Matto and Roger Manning on backing vocals)

Yer Blues [The Beatles] (w/Sean Lennon on electric guitar and lead vocals and Beck on harmonica)

Tomorrow Never Knows [The Beatles] (w/Sean Lennon on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, Beck on tambourine and backing vocals, Cibo Matto on tambourine and Roger Manning on backing vocals)

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I am the Cosmos is a top 5 all time song for me. I am floored that they played it.

Yeah that one is just mindfucking me right now. Beck and Wilco together anyway was enough for me. I Am The Cosmos? Holy shit.

I really should've made a point to get to this show.

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I am the Cosmos is a top 5 all time song for me. I am floored that they played it.

I love Cosmos, too. To be fair, though, they didn't totally nail it. Seemed like Beck struggled with a couple of lines. They should have let Pat sing a verse, IMHO.

 

They did rip Yer Blues, though. And I was glad to finally see Tomorrow Never Knows, which is the only semi-regular collaboration I hadn't yet.

 

Another fun night, despite a somewhat lame crowd.

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Start and end of the set were very good. Middle contained three of my least favorite songs in a row (impossible, art of almost, war on war). My friend who is new to wilco commented at one point "they jam a lot more than I thought they would."

 

Tweedy commented on the dull crowd after hummingbird. After saying it was mattys first show he then said something like "is everyone here's first show too?" Then he stepped away from the mic and said "seems like it!"

 

Obviously the stuff with beck and Sean Lennon stole the entire concert. I really wish Dylan invited beck and Jeff out for the end of his set, especially since it is Becks only night on tour. Perhaps he didn't because the crowd was so lame.

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For anyone interested, here was Beck's complete setlist as played:

Jack-Ass
Lazy Flies
Guess I'm Doing Fine
Now That Your Dollar Bills Have Sprouted Wings [song Reader]
Sorry
Just Noise [song Reader]
Don't Act Like Your Heart Isn't Hard [song Reader]
Sissyneck (w/Bang A Gong (Get It On) and Billie Jean interludes)
The Golden Age
It's All In Your Mind
Dead Melodies
Country Time (instrumental; w/Richard Bowden on fiddle) [edit: this may have been Dylan's Nashville Skyline Rag, but it was not listed as such on Beck's printed setlist]
Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods
One Foot in the Grave (Beck solo harmonica)
Modern Guilt
Gamma Ray
Lost Cause
Already Dead
Sleepless Nights [Everly Brothers]
Where It's At

Both Heaven's Ladder, another Song Reader tune, and Sunday Sun were on the setlist but not played.

Dylan, meanwhile, pretty much played his usual set with no collaborations tonight. I should probably just have it as a handy cut-and-paste somewhere, but I guess I can type it out again:

Things Have Changed
Love Sick
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Soon After Midnight
Early Roman Kings
Tangled Up In Blue
Duquesne Whistle
She Belongs To Me
Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
Blind Willie McTell
Simple Twist Of Fate
Summer Days
All Along The Watchtower
----------------------------------
Ballad of a Thin Man

Missed Ryan Bingham's set, though he probably played what he's been playing since joining the tour.

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The last 3 songs of Wilco's set last night were just incredible, the energy from the stage was amazing.  Watching Jeff play that slide part on "Loser" and seeing Beck doing his rap/dance routine, a monstrous take on "Yer Blues" again with some great harmonica from Beck and Jeff and Sean Lennon swapping verses, and then Glenn's pounding drums and Nels guitar flourishes on "Tomorrow Never Knows" - just great stuff, very exciting. 

 

I'm a big fan of Beck's acoustic output, and had never seen him before. I really enjoyed his set a lot.  Loved hearing "Golden Age" and the "Song Reader" songs.  Beck was amusing and talked a lot.  It was fun to watch him play with the drum machine too.

 

I'm a huge Dylan fan, but must say that after seeing him at Bridgeport last week (which I enjoyed), I found myself bored by the set tonight.  Even though I totally appreciate and enjoy Dylan's output since "Time Out of Mind", I was really empathizing with the fans tonight who just wanted to hear something they knew.  Out of 15 songs there were only 7 that were written prior to 1997, and one of those was "Blind Willie McTell".  I don't mind the singing so much, but I think Dylan's piano playing really holds the band back.  His piano lines on "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" nearly ruin the song for me.  Without major changes to the show, that will probably be the last time I see Bob. 

On a side note, the crowd was very tame last night.  I was sitting in the Orchestra in front of Nels, about 12 rows back.  Security wouldn't let anybody stand in the wide aisle spaces, most of the people up front seemed to be there for Dylan, and sat through almost the entire show.  The last three songs of the Wilco set were by far the high point of the show.

 

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I am the cosmos??? That's incredible and so out of left field! I hadn't thought about that song until i watched the Big Star doc last weekend, what a beautiful song though

Apparently Beck has been playing Cosmos in some of his sets recently (including the one at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday night) so I guess it's not as out of left field as I also initially thought when they started playing it. Great choice for a collaboration, though since Beck was the one who had been doing it, it was a little weird that he seemed to struggle a bit with the lyrics. But then again, as someone pointed put to me, he kind of has that ramshackle vibe with some of his own songs...

 

Just wanted to point out maybe my favorite tiny bit from last night's merriment, which was when Sean Lennon came out. He said something like, "What song do you want to play, Jeff?" To which Jeff apparently shrugged. So Sean said, "OK, then we're gonna play the blues." (Or possibly Yer Blues, I guess?) And then they just launched into it.

 

Anyway, it was just a lot of fun to see and hear them do that one. Some pals and I were talking afterward and saying how Sean's singing really sounds eerily like his father. Would love to hear this set again, but I'm afraid that might only happen via some shaky, illicitly shot cell phone vids.

 

One other bit of banter that was amusing was Beck joined Wilco, Jeff made a joke about how Beck was his stylist (since both were wearing fedora-type headgear). And Beck replied that it was "a frontman hat."

 

At any rate, the other thing I wanted to say was just how completely 180 degrees opposite the atmosphere was at Jones Beach than the previous night in Hoboken. For better and worse. Neither was ideal, IMHO, but as others have alluded to, the crowd was largely so passive at Jones Beach. Perhaps that has to do with no booze being sold at the venue (since it's a state park), but people really just sat and observed for most of the show.

 

I mean, Hoboken was almost like a mini-Jersey Shore, so that wasn't ideal either. But given the two choices, I think I'd opt for the rowdy over the passive every time. Don't get me wrong, the performances and surprise guests were terrific both nights, but last night the atmosphere --whether it was the crowd or the venue or whatever -- just felt kind of stale to me.

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I'm a huge Dylan fan, but must say that after seeing him at Bridgeport last week (which I enjoyed), I found myself bored by the set tonight.  Even though I totally appreciate and enjoy Dylan's output since "Time Out of Mind", I was really empathizing with the fans tonight who just wanted to hear something they knew.  Out of 15 songs there were only 7 that were written prior to 1997, and one of those was "Blind Willie McTell".  I don't mind the singing so much, but I think Dylan's piano playing really holds the band back.  His piano lines on "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" nearly ruin the song for me.  Without major changes to the show, that will probably be the last time I see Bob. 

 

 

 

I was at the Bridgeport show, too, and I thought that was one of the worst Dylan performances I've ever seen (only beaten out by the one in Rochester back in 2008 where almost every song sounded exactly the same). I don't know if it was a bad mix or if he was just mumbling the whole night. It was a chore to get through the whole set. Tuesday he played almost the same set and was excellent. He danced (kind of like he had to poop, but hey, at least he tried). He seemed to actually know all the lyrics. And best of all, he enunciated! You just never know what you're going to get with him, which is a big reason I stopped seeing him for awhile. I'm hoping he's bearable tonight, because I imagine this will be the last time I see him for awhile. 

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