Wilco — 8 July 2016, Brugge, Belgium (Minnewaterpark) [Cactus Festival]

[bböp]

Another "better late than never" post on this festival gig from the other night. Not too much to report, really, except that it was just a weird show...

 

Wilco technically was the headline act on the first night of the three-day Cactus Festival that is held in a lovely park in Brugge (aka Bruges) not far from the train station, but by the time the band took the stage for its 11:30 p.m.-1 a.m. set time, it seemed like most of the crowd had already seen what it had come to see. Part of that might have been attributed to the immediately preceding band, Black Box Revelation, who were hometown heroes of sorts — a Belgian version of the Black Keys who sing in English and thrilled the crowd with its scuzzy brand of garage rock. With a fairly young core audience that even featured a mosh pit and some (attempted) crowd surfing at times, BBR put a jolt of electricity into the evening and probably should have been the headliner in this instance — and for all intents and purposes were, even returning for a two-song encore.

 

So Wilco had to go on after that, and whether it was the lateness of the set, the comedown from the BBR performance, relative unfamiliarity with the band or the innate stoicism of the Flemish crowd — or some combination of all those things — it made for a set that almost seemed like an afterthought at times.

 

In his role as frontman, Mr. Tweedy did his best to rouse the audience (and even temporarily shed both his now-trademark hat and glasses at a certain point, which made me do a brief double take because with his hair currently being a bit long, you almost felt like you were seeing a vision of Jeff from the past). He actually took the microphone in hand and worked the stage a bit during Camera, for example, and tried to get the crowd to clap along at the appropriate parts of Spiders (Kidsmoke), which hasn't been much of a problem elsewhere in Europe. During the song when he apparently saw that much of the crowd was not participating in the clapfest, he said something like, "I know it feels like a stupid thing, but it feels good when we all do something together." Sadly, afterward, when the clapping bit had failed to generate much of a response, Jeff tried to play it cool and said, "Just kidding...I probably wouldn't clap either if I didn't have to."

 

Later in the show, ironically after someone yelled something from the crowd, Jeff simply had to say what he probably had been thinking for much of the set: "You're the quietest outdoor audience I've ever seen. It's OK...just an observation." Fittingly, perhaps, Wilco didn't even get to play its final planned song. When Impossible Germany wrapped up right at 1 a.m., the band was clearly going to play The Late Greats to close but when Jeff turned to the side of the stage and asked if they could do one more, he apparently was given a negative reply, so with that, the band simply was left to awkwardly wave good night and head off. A bizarre capper to a weird night.

 

Another missed opportunity was a chance for a collaboration with old friends Calexico, who had played prior to Black Box Revelation and been well received. I don't know if Calexico had to leave before Wilco's set time, or if the bands just decided that there wouldn't be enough time to squeeze in a song together, but I thought perhaps we'd at least get the Calexico trumpets out for California Stars, a song they've done together many times before. Alas, like more than a few things on this night, it wasn't to be.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (The Late Greats was on the printed setlist, but not played):

 

More...

Random Name Generator

The Joke Explained

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

Art Of Almost

Pickled Ginger

Hummingbird

Handshake Drugs

Camera

Cold Slope>

King Of You

Via Chicago

Spiders (Kidsmoke) (electric arrangement)

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Dawned On Me

Impossible Germany

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta