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Wilco — 8/18/15, Salt Lake City, UT (Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre)


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Perhaps it's a bit too convenient to say that the final show of Wilco's 2015 summer tour of the Western states and Canada was a microcosm of the whole run. But I'm going to go there. There was the good (a beautiful outdoor setting and the weather to match), the bad (a sometimes too-casual crowd) and the slightly weird (stage-jumping kids, glow-stick barrages).

 

It was the band's third time playing at the Red Butte Garden facility, though I hadn't managed to see either of the previous shows here. Jeff mentioned how much he loved Salt Lake City, thanked the crowd for inviting the band back so often and even gave a shoutout to a couple branches of a local Mexican restaurant (the Red Iguana, Numbers 1 and 2).

 

And it's evident that the crowd loves Wilco back, though it sometimes had an odd way of showing it. Like the kid who thought it would be a good idea to hop on stage and sashay a bit during Box Full Of Letters (and was promptly whisked off by various crew members). Or the 30-second onslaught of glow sticks that Jeff smartly incited around the same time after seeing them being thrown around sporadically. He started with a mini-rant that he didn't understand the appeal of throwing glow sticks and saying it "wasn't cool" that they could hit other people in the head, but when it became apparent that people had brought an immense amount of them, Jeff simply encouraged folks to throw them at the stage all at once (to try and exhaust the supply). I think at least one person even tried to score a direct hit on Jeff himself, to which Jeff joked, "Ooh, but who's got all the ammunition now?"

 

I suppose those sort of antics were better than folks who didn't really seem to give much of a crap about the performance they paid to see, though. Like the gentleman in the front row center who incurred Jeff's wrath by looking at his cell phone during most of Impossible Germany. After the song, Jeff said he was concerned about the man and wanted to make sure his emergency was all sorted out because "Nels Cline was playing a solo right in front of you...and it's not my place to say whether (looking at one's cell phone the whole time) is right but it doesn't seem right."

 

Jeff was a bit ornery about the audience on a couple of occasions, calling it a "psychedelic crowd" at one point and saying "I don't know what to make of you guys." There was a little bit of a rave going on in the middle, he said, and a little bit of an energy lull right in the front with a few "comfortable" people who remained sitting in their lawn chairs.

 

Actually maybe Jeff's best bit from Banter Corner came when he said he preferred the comfortable people in front to what he remembered about the band's previous performance at the venue — namely a woman in front who was "hiking up her skirt slowly to show me her snack cake. That's what I remember about that show." (Apparently the woman actually had a snack cake stashed somewhere on her body.)

 

I'm sure there were many other audience, er, moments last night. To mention just one more that I personally witnessed (but that didn't get the desired attention from Jeff and/or the other band members), a woman next to me who had apparently also attended he Ketchum show two nights prior decided it would be a good idea to brandish a large wooden spoon for much of the show in an attempt – I'm sure — to try and recreate a defining moment from that show, which is just always a bad idea. At any rate, just before The Late Greats, she decided it would be a good idea to step forward and just launch the spoon on stage over by Pat. I'm not sure if he even saw it, but she didn't get the requisite attention she wanted and one of the band's techs simply walked over and took the spoon away. (The woman was later overheard lamenting that she wanted her spoon back.)

 

Crowd shenanigans aside, the show was a solid one to end what had been relatively grueling tour. Not a lot of surprises setlist-wise and, for a split second, I thought the band might even cut the hootenanny for the third straight show. But fortunately Jeff and Co. had the time and energy to come out for a six-song acoustic set that was a fun singalong (at least for those who knew the lyrics).

 

If only Wilco had been so inclined to play a few of the songs it had soundchecked earlier in the day (Side With The Seeds, Forget The Flowers, In The Street, Wasn't Born To Follow), we might have had a real barnburner on our hands. But as it was, this 2-hour, 24-minute outing was certainly a more-than-respectable way to bring the "Summer of Star Wars" to a close.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (there were no changes from the printed setlist):

 

More...

Random Name Generator

The Joke Explained

You Satellite

Taste The Ceiling

Pickled Ginger

Where Do I Begin

Cold Slope>

King Of You

Magnetized

Handshake Drugs

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

Art Of Almost

Hummingbird

Box Full Of Letters

Secret Of The Sea

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Dawned On Me

Via Chicago

Jesus, etc.

Born Alone

Impossible Germany

The Late Greats

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

Spiders (Kidsmoke) (electric arrangement)

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

Misunderstood*

War On War*

It's Just That Simple*

Give Back The Key To My Heart* [Doug Sahm]

California Stars*

A Shot in the Arm*

 

*— performed hootenanny style with Jeff and John on acoustic guitars, Nels on dobro, Glenn on percussion, Mikael on melodica/acoustic guitar and Pat on banjo

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What if the poster book had included Paul's notes from every show he attended on the page opposite the poster for that night? That would be such an amazing chronicle. What a missed opportunity...

My thoughts exactly! Just kidding...B)

 

Seriously, though, y'all are making me blush. I appreciate the (I'm sure) very small but dedicated readership!

 

I never really set out to do this. I just tried to help out with accurate setlist reporting from shows I went to (and FYI, we're working on a project to try and pick up somewhat from where Wilcobase left off with more detail, accuracy and ease of use than the official Wilco effort). But here we are, and while I can't promise I'll make it to every show like I was fortunate to on this Western run, I'll try to keep on keepin' on as much as possible...

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