Wilco — 22 March 2024, Sydney, Australia (Enmore Theatre)

[bböp]

One final show Down Under, and now the Wilcos and the Wilcrew are all presumably headed back home after another successful run through their usual touring grounds of Japan and Australia. This final show of the run was in the more-conducive-to-rocking confines of the Enmore Theatre, which if memory serves, is where they also performed when they played Sydney back in the halcyon days of 2007 and 2008. Alas, I wasn't able to be there this time...but once again look forward to the reports and thoughts from those lucky souls who were.

 

Here, via the good folk at Wilcoworld, was the reported setlist for the tour finale:

 

Infinite Surprise

At Least That's What You Said

Handshake Drugs

Levee

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

One Wing

Either Way

Cousin

Hummingbird

Evicted

Box Full Of Letters

Jesus, etc.

Impossible Germany

Dawned On Me

I'm Always In Love

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

A Shot In The Arm

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

California Stars (w/Leah Senior and band on backing vocals and electric guitar)

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Spiders (Kidsmoke)

[theashtraysays]

The Enmore was indeed more suitable for a rock show than the ICONIC (oops I did it again) Sydney opera house, not that I’m endorsing one over the other. But for sure the Enmore show felt a lot looser than the previous night at what Jeff described as being “inside someone’s sculpture”.  
The Enmore had a cool art deco vibe throughout with lots of velour and cool details all around. The setup was unique in that there was a GA “pen” in front of the stage for about 1/3 of the floor area, with a rail BEHIND the “pen” but none in front so it was all elbows-on-stage for the very crowded GA section. Behind that rail was a 5’ gap and then several rows of seats going to the back of the venue. There was a pretty large balcony in the back half that also included very narrow side balconies extending almost to the stage. Those side balconies only had two rows of seats with the upper row being a good 3-4 feet above the lower row. We were in that lower row on the Pat side, and the nice thing was that you could stand up without blocking that second row at all. Odd layout but the GA pen did help the vibe. 
Sound was just OK, with a rather annoying AC hum being quite present for most of the show. The soundboard was oddly located under the balcony way back past the rising floor seats such that the FOH crew only got a small window to hear through, under the balcony and over the crowd. 
But none of that seemed to hurt the vibe which was loose and fun and perhaps had the best singalong crowd of the whole tour. 
It did take a while for Jeff to enter banter corner, going six songs deep before the first “how’ve you been?” and saying “this is our last night, but we’ll be back!” adding “y’know what, let’s just have another show tomorrow night!”. And he reprised his localization on IATTBYH with a “g’day” after the hello.  
After a very enthusiastic “SHIIIIINE TODAY” from the audience in Either Way, we got a “thanks for singing along - you sounded great!”. 
After the ever-present lone fan replied with “you’re great” (or something like that), Jeff replied “thanks for the individual encouragement! I’d like to go around to each one of you individually now. We’re here to perform a service!” 
After another full-choir response in Hummingbird, he said “I can’t believe you know the words to so many songs. So glad to find out you haven’t forgotten us! We haven’t forgotten any of you either. I don’t remember all the names but I recognize the faces. And lots of Wilco shirts!” Then to one woman in the front (who I was told was the same woman who came down front in Canberra when he sang Hummingbird) “but I don’t know why YOU’RE not wearing one” which got a bit of a booooo rebuke from the rest of the crowd. 
Someone later hollered something that sounded like “turn it up” but Jeff at first misheard it and replied “Turn it off? Oh, turn it up?”, to which someone chimed in (or Jeff just chimed in) “Take it off??” and feigned unbuttoning his jacket a bit. He stopped, explaining “Seems like the band is against the idea. They’ve seen it.”  
This brought on more shouts and song names from the audience to which he replied “we’re gonna get to ALL those songs, don’t worry”.  This was not entirely true of course. 
After IG, Nels (clad in his navy blue “PJ” top this evening… iykyk), strapped on his white double neck beast for Dawned on Me. Jeff always has a snarky comment about that contraption, tonight saying “His solo was so good we make him put this on afterwards so he doesn’t get too cocky.” 
Toward the end of the main set he asked “Having a good time? We’re gonna miss you. We’ll come back as soon as we possibly can. And New Zealand. Don’t tell them.”  And when someone suggested they come to India, replied “Sure! Do you have a place? Just leave your address… we go everywhere eventually.” 
During HMD, Glenn did indeed twirl his stick, prompting a cheer from the audience as well as a Jeff mid-song comment of “don’t encourage him.”  
Encore break ends, and Jeff welcomes the Leah Senior band onto the stage for CaliStars, introducing Leah, Jessie, and Andi as “just the most badass traveling partners ever”.  Jessie gets the last solo of the song, which turns into a great little extended guitar duet with him and Nels. 
As the closing Spiders gets to the audience participation section, Jeff challenges the crowd that “if you think you’re too cool to put you hands in the air and clap at a rock concert, you’re not!”  
Moments later, a very free-spirited fan hoisted more than just her elbows on the stage, running across the front of the stage from Pat, past Jeff, and then over to the Nels side, clapping all the way. This brought two responses - Jeff saying “but you ARE too cool for that!”, as well as tour manager / part time bouncer Eric appearing from the stage wings to make sure the fan made her stage exit as promptly as her entrance. 
Pah-pah-paras immediately followed, and the once-in-over-a-decade Aussie tour came to a close. Goodbyes were waved, lights came up, and it was back to reality for us all. 
Till next time / place - cheers all!!

Vince 

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta

[bböp]

1 hour ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta

 
tlock.

[BeShakey]

The jammed GA section with a seated back section of the floor made for a slightly strange experience. Normally GA has enough space for people to be able to sort themselves but the lack of room meant everyone was jammed in with lots of people standing at the sides of the room because there wasn't room in GA.

 

The set itself was largely a hybrid of Melbourne nights two and three. Meaning no real surprises, although it looked like there was a long conversation between Jeff and Pat around when Impossible Germany got played and the instruments being bought out were waved away, suggesting a song got dropped from the set at that point (would be great to confirm from anyone that has the setlist).

 

The band seemed to be enjoying themselves, although there were a couple of minor mistakes from Jeff. He started to whistle during Dawned on Me having already done the whistling section, and messed up the intro to I'm the Man Who Loves You. There was some minor excitement (at least from me) when two extra microphones were bought out before the encore, but sadly it was just Leah Senior and band who didn't seem to have particularly impressed anyone I spoke with. Particularly sad when we could potentiall have had a Graham Nash appearance the previous night. 

 

Having been to all the Melbourne and Sydney shows I'd say that while none were bad, the Melbourne shows, particularly nights 2 and 3, were a step above the Sydney shows. The Opera House is iconic, but fully seated shows aren't the best option for Wilco. Likewise, the weird seating arrangement for the Enmore meant that the room lacked the energy it could have had with a fully standing downstairs section. My only slight criticism is that it would have been nice to hear a few different songs. Meant to Be in particular is supposed to be the current single but didn't make an appearance at any of the shows on the tour. Having been away for a month short of 11 years, we got only 13 songs from the albums they'd released in that time (versus 10 songs from AGiB alone). Still, a great tour and hopefully the many promises to return sooner next time will mean we won't have to wait until 2035 for the next tour.

[eckythump]

6 hours ago, BeShakey said:

The set itself was largely a hybrid of Melbourne nights two and three. Meaning no real surprises, although it looked like there was a long conversation between Jeff and Pat around when Impossible Germany got played and the instruments being bought out were waved away, suggesting a song got dropped from the set at that point (would be great to confirm from anyone that has the setlist).

 

I saw a photo of a setlist posted on the Wilco FB group and the song in question has black marker over it, but it looks like it said 'Lifetime' which was the song that was scrapped, and I'm Always In Love was added in its place.

[Albert Tatlock]

22 hours ago, bböp said:

 
tlock.

enspeil

 

[nalafej]

15 hours ago, BeShakey said:

The jammed GA section with a seated back section of the floor made for a slightly strange experience. Normally GA has enough space for people to be able to sort themselves but the lack of room meant everyone was jammed in with lots of people standing at the sides of the room because there wasn't room in GA.

 

The set itself was largely a hybrid of Melbourne nights two and three. Meaning no real surprises, although it looked like there was a long conversation between Jeff and Pat around when Impossible Germany got played and the instruments being bought out were waved away, suggesting a song got dropped from the set at that point (would be great to confirm from anyone that has the setlist).

 

The band seemed to be enjoying themselves, although there were a couple of minor mistakes from Jeff. He started to whistle during Dawned on Me having already done the whistling section, and messed up the intro to I'm the Man Who Loves You. There was some minor excitement (at least from me) when two extra microphones were bought out before the encore, but sadly it was just Leah Senior and band who didn't seem to have particularly impressed anyone I spoke with. Particularly sad when we could potentiall have had a Graham Nash appearance the previous night. 

 

Having been to all the Melbourne and Sydney shows I'd say that while none were bad, the Melbourne shows, particularly nights 2 and 3, were a step above the Sydney shows. The Opera House is iconic, but fully seated shows aren't the best option for Wilco. Likewise, the weird seating arrangement for the Enmore meant that the room lacked the energy it could have had with a fully standing downstairs section. My only slight criticism is that it would have been nice to hear a few different songs. Meant to Be in particular is supposed to be the current single but didn't make an appearance at any of the shows on the tour. Having been away for a month short of 11 years, we got only 13 songs from the albums they'd released in that time (versus 10 songs from AGiB alone). Still, a great tour and hopefully the many promises to return sooner next time will mean we won't have to wait until 2035 for the next tour.

 

I love an honest review on this site. Hope you had a good time despite all these circumstances!

[BeShakey]

Haha - flew over from NZ for all the Melbourne/Sydney shows. Honestly there wasn't a bad show in there

[kidsmoke]

Terrific review, Vince!

[Wilc Os]

On 3/26/2024 at 1:00 PM, BeShakey said:

Haha - flew over from NZ for all the Melbourne/Sydney shows. Honestly there wasn't a bad show in there

I too flew over from NZ, for two of the Melbourne shows. Are you the person I met from Dunedin at the front of The Forum wait queue perhaps?

Wish I could have made it to more shows but the two I saw were absolutely worth the cost and effort of travelling!!