Wilco – 7 November 2016, Berlin, Germany (Tempodrom)

[bböp]

Man, that was way more fun a show than it probably had any right to be for a Monday night in a city not necessarily known for its exuberance (at least when it comes to cultish American rock bands) and in a venue that wouldn't necessarily portend a super engaged crowd. But for whatever reason, after the first few songs, the vibe shifted from one of a passive, relatively disengaged dynamic between band and audience to one of connection. And that's always a good thing.

 

First a few words about Tempodrom, which the band has played at least once before and which is a decidedly odd kind of room. It's distinguished, from the outside, by several towering pointed white spires that sort of reminded me of the Denver airport, if anyone's ever been there. Inside, the venue is split into two levels — the upper one which featured stadium seating in a kind of circus-style rounded arrangement and then floor seating like you might find in an arena. Then there is the extremely tall ceiling, which you might have expected from the spires seen from the exterior. Basically, you'd have to do quite a bit to tear the proverbial roof of the mother sucker (to quote George Clinton).

 

I don't know that Wilco came close to doing that, but nonetheless, it turned into a pretty spirited performance, especially once the standing faction won out somewhere during the transition between IATTBYH and Art Of Almost. There had been signs of a stage rush even during the set break after William Tyler, but some ushers and security cleared the front areas before Wilco came on. But when the on rush began to happen again early in the set, and Jeff took note and said, "Just because you have chairs doesn't mean you have to sit in them," then the scene was established. Jeff subsequently said that he hoped that if anyone physically couldn't stand that someone would help them come to the front, but that "otherwise, I think this is better."

 

(On a personal note, it was good for me because I feel like I might have completely irritated the German dudes on either side of me if I had been rocking in my seat the entire show. These guys were typically Germanic in their stoicism, let's say, so it definitely felt weird to be head bopping and such even after we stood up.)

 

There wasn't an overwhelming amount of banter, but after one German guy toward the front yelled out in English something like "Glenn Kotche is a great drummer, you have to say," Jeff took the occasion to thank the crowd for speaking English. He sort of sheepishly apologized for a lot of Americans (including himself) not being able to speak anything but English — he did say a couple of danke schoens, but said that was the best he could do — and quipped, "It's nice of you to meet us all the way, in our language."

 

Of course Jeff also gave Glenn a hard time on a couple of occasions, like after the aforementioned shoutout. You could tell all Glenn wanted to do was count off the intro into the next song, Jesus, etc., but Jeff drew out Glenn's embarrassment for a precious few more seconds before letting him proceed. And then after Jesus, he asked if Glenn wanted to introduce "your German relative" to which Glenn alas shook his head.

 

Jeff also admitted to a bit of nervousness with the U.S. election looming and even cracked a minor joke about about Trump winning, but then came to his senses and said it "wasn't even worth it. We got this. We'll be all right."

 

Musically speaking, the highlights for me were probably the rearrangements — subtle and otherwise — of songs like Misunderstood, Bull Black Nova and Spiders. I mean, it wasn't necessarily anything that we haven't seen before, but since it was the first time I'd seen some of those arrangements in a couple of months, maybe they struck me a little bit more than they otherwise might have. Bull Black, in particular, was pretty stunning with the haunting, fade out ending and Nels on both lap steel (briefly) and resonator guitar and Jeff on acoustic. Spiders, meanwhile, was the frenetic, double-time version with Jeff even pausing to lead the crowd in singing the guitar riff — perhaps something he stole from the South American audiences last month.

 

About the only quibble I could muster might have been the general sound — no fault of Stan's, but just the acoustics of that particular room. It might have sounded better up in the circus seats, but down front, maybe because of the extremely tall roof, it just seemed like the sound kind of dissipated up into the air and so it never got really loud and even seemed a bit muffled at times (I'm thinking of Nels' guitar solo on Impossible Germany, for example.) But it really wasn't that bad, and for the tradeoff of better-than-expected energy from the crowd, I'll take it.

 

Anyway, here was the complete setlist as played:

 

Normal American Kids^

If I Ever Was A Child

Cry All Day

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

Art Of Almost

Pickled Ginger

Misunderstood

Someone To Lose

Pot Kettle Black

The Joke Explained

Via Chicago

Buil Black Nova (acoustic arrangement)

Reservations

Impossible Germany

We Aren't The World (Safety Girl)

Random Name Generator

Jesus, etc.

Locator

Box Full Of Letters

Theologians

I'm Always In Love

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

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

Hummmingbird

The Late Greats

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

Spiders (Kidsmoke) (electric arrangement)

 

^ — Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline only

[Albert Tatlock]

Bbop's in his heaven; all's well with the world.

[50footqueenie]

I remember having front row seats for the last time at this venue and then the crowd rushing the stage two minutes into the first number, leaving us two rows back!  Bloody Berliners...