Jeff Tweedy — 4 April 2019, Pittsburgh, PA (Carnegie Lecture Hall of Oakland)

[bböp]

Given the slightly off-kilter setting for this show — a genuine, tried-and-true collegiate-style lecture hall — it would be easy to make a crack about how "Professor Tweedy" riveted the crowd with both his oratory and guitar skills and put on a clinic for solo acoustic performance. So I'll restrain myself from that and just suggest that if Jeff was to one day do a TED Talk of some sort, it would probably become the most successful thing he's ever done.

 

When one audience member took the opportunity to ask the natural question — "Where's your PowerPoint?" — Jeff joked that he left it on the bus and that coming up with presentations like that was what he and his traveling companions did all day while on tour, covering such topics as "Having enough fiber in your diet." And I suppose this room, of any of the ones Jeff has played on this run of Warm gigs, would have been the ideal forum for Jeff to conduct one of his patented mid-set Q&A sessions, which he briefly attempted but sort of cut short after only one question. (Q: What was it like to meet Bob Dylan? A: Pretty much what you'd expect it would be like.)

 

The unique setting of the Carnegie Lecture Hall of Oakland did provide for a certain level of intimacy between performer and audience that was pretty much the polar opposite from the previous evening in Toronto. Whereas that room had been a black box with almost no lighting at all, the Carnegie was brightly lit to the point where the performers could probably see nearly everyone in the room. Support act Buck Meek — who will be missed after his last show on the tour Saturday in Boston — remarked that it reminded him of playing house shows on the West Coast recently, perhaps also owing to the ultra-low stage. As for Jeff, he quipped that this might be "the most I've ever been able to see" an audience and how he didn't like it. "It's freaky," he said. He noted how it was weird to look out and see everyone just sitting there and not even nodding along or anything. And he even jokingly singled out one guy in the front row center who had a bunch of tattoos and looked like he was going to strangle him — and then made sure to ask what song he wanted to hear.

 

A few songs later, as Jeff was perhaps about to launch into some of his usual banter about requests, one guy shouted one for Hate It Here. Jeff gave a briefly disapproving look, but then admitted that it was harder to say no when he could see the man's face and confessed that it was "one of the hardest songs for me to play rhythmically because I have stupid fingers." Eventually he did sort of grant the request (though he told the rest of us not to "get any ideas" about shouting out others). He played most of the song, which actually helped the warm the audience up a bit in terms of participation, but then abandoned the end when the audience prematurely applauded after the big breakdown. "There's another verse, but I think we got the idea," Jeff noted. "I felt like that took a long time (already)."

 

Chatty Jeff was definitely present for most of the show, though his visits to Banter Corner were more fueled by different audience interactions than anything else, and probably not as funny if you weren't there. For instance, Jeff displayed his mastery of crowd dynamics in a couple of amusing mid-set exchanges around the song You And I. As he strummed the opening chords, one man to his right shared, earnestly, "That was our wedding song, Jeff." To which Jeff replied, "What was your wife's song? ... I think something's wrong there, and I just had to call it out." Then after the song, a different man to Jeff's left shouted, "That was our wedding song." And Jeff, of course, shot back, "Why are you sitting over there, then? I guess you must have bought tickets from a scalper."

 

Jeff also had a mildly awkward interaction with a woman to his right whom he spotted leaving with a kid in tow just before the end of the main set. "Oh, are you leaving already?" Jeff asked. "Have a nice night." When the woman protested a bit about being called out, Jeff said, "No, I get it. It's a school night." Then, after the woman and child had left, Jeff added, "Sorry I didn't know more kids' songs." This was all done in an amusing tone of voice, but it just showed you how aware Jeff can be of what's going on in the crowd, especially when he can see as well as he could tonight. Again, probably because he could see the members of the audience better than usual, Jeff even teased them at times, notably after Jesus, etc. when it seemed like some folks wanted to sing along. "Oh, did you want to sing along to that one? Were you holding back?" Jeff said as people murmured in the affirmative. "Did you want another chance?" A man then shouted for California Stars, to which Jeff sadly shook his head and said that was a song that everyone thought they knew the words to but really didn't, before going into Let's Go Rain instead. (Of course, in true Jeff fashion, he would end up playing California Stars in the encore, saying that he wished that he could have the lyrics projected onto the screen behind him — which actually might not be a bad idea.)

 

Another funny little bit came when Jeff announced that “we’re almost to the end (of the show),” which caused the crowd to groan a bit. Jeff replied, in typical parental fashion, "Well, we can end it now. That always worked with my kids,” and proceeded to tell a quick story about how his younger son Sammy had been the master of negotiation when he was younger. When they were in a grocery store, Jeff said Sammy would come up to him and ask if he could have eight candy bars. "I was like, what the fuck?" Jeff said. "Who asks for eight candy bars? You can have three. Worked every time."

 

From a musical standpoint, I should mention that there were some interesting setlist quirks with this show. Such as Jeff electing not to play either the first or last song of his main set — in other words, Via Chicago and I'm The Man Who Loves You — that have been pretty static for the vast majority of this run. Such as playing a deep cut like Cars Can't Escape, which Jeff has said often gets the most votes on any given night among the songs requested on Wilco's Web site and which you might have assumed got the most for this show but which Jeff said actually only got one for this show. And such as the pairing of Hummingbird and The Ruling Class, which caused Jeff to sarcastically observe afterward, "I don't think I've ever put the two big whistling songs back to back (on a setlist) before. Let's remember this night. You know who's really bad at whistling? Andrew Bird."

 

Also of note (to probably five people or less), I noticed the previous night in Toronto that Jeff had switched from the olive green jacket he was sporting on the first half of this run to a black one in a similar style. He's still not sporting any headgear, though he has more recently abandoned his banter about why he hasn't been wearing his trademark Stetson. And tonight he used just one guitar for the entire show — his 1930s-era Martin — with the exception of the final song when he switched to one of his Kel Kroydons for the show-closing Acuff-Rose. Did that switch have anything to do with Jeff's only real flub of the evening, when he opened Acuff with the "Early in the evening..." couplet instead of the "Early in the morning..." one and then shrugged his shoulders a few seconds later when he realized his mistake? I guess we'll never know, but I wonder how many of the 350 or so in attendance even noticed.

 

Then again, it's not like Pittsburghers have had numerous opportunities to see Jeff perform solo acoustic. Looking back at Jeff's performance history, there's a good chance this might have been his first-ever headlining solo show in Pittsburgh despite it being a city which Wilco has played many times over the years. (Jeff did do an abbreviated solo set as part of a Tweedy band performance in 2014.) It seems almost unbelievable, much like with Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago, but there it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played:

 

Bombs Above

Some Birds

Remember The Mountain Bed

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

I Know What It's Like

Cars Can't Escape

Hate It Here

Family Ghost

You And I

Hummingbird

The Ruling Class

Guaranteed

White Wooden Cross

New Madrid

Evergreen

Jesus, etc.

Let's Go Rain

Passenger Side

The Late Greats

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Having Been Is No Way To Be

Don't Forget

California Stars

Acuff-Rose

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta