Wilco — 15 June 2024, Chicago, IL (Salt Shed [Outdoors]) [Night 2 of 2]

[bböp]

After an early pall caused by a medical emergency of some sort — the affected person apparently had to be carried out on a stretcher, so it seemed to be more serious than your standard concert fainting incident — Night 2 of Wilco’s two-night hometown run at the Salt Shed “fairgrounds” finished in gloriously rocking fashion on another second straight lovely Chicago evening.

 

From my vantage point, it was difficult to tell exactly what what going on but I’m sure others had a better view of it, including the band, which fortunately was between songs — I Am My Mother and Cruel Country, to be exact — when one of their crew members and then their tour manager came out on stage to alert them to the situation. As opposed to the other night in Milwaukee when a fainting incident occurred mid-song and Jeff signaled to his bandmates to continue to playing and later explained that he had been brought up to never stop playing in a situation like that because, in bars, usually things would only get worse when there wasn’t any music happening, this time he calmed the situation down just with his voice. He said, in part, “If the person on the stretcher can hear me, Wilco loves you. … Now let’s get back to saying ‘I love you,’ to each other.” We never did find out what happened to the person, but hopefully they are all right.

 

At any rate, after that early delay briefly dampened the mood, it was pretty much back to normal after a song or two. Over the course of the next few songs, Jeff was once again poking fun at parts of the audience (spotting several young faces draped across the rail, he pointed at them and said, “You’re the youngest people I’ve seen in front in a long time. Did you get lost?”); at himself (during If I Ever Was A Child, he hit a clearly wonky chord and made a sheepish face and afterward joked, “I apologize for the D-flat major I inserted into that song. I thought it would be an adventurous substitution, but I was wrong.”); and at local radio station WXRT, whose DJ Marty Lennartz seems to introduce just about every Wilco show in Chicago and did once again at the Salt Shed (before Evicted, Jeff thanked XRT for its support over the years, noting how it had played the first single off Cousin like so many other songs Wilco has put out over the years. “XRT has played 105 songs we put out,” Jeff quipped. “All one time.”)

 

By my count, 16 of the 25 songs played on Night 2 weren’t played on Night 1 so that exceeded my expectations a bit in terms of how much the setlist would change from night to night. And of those swapouts, there were certainly a few notable ones. Show (and Being There) opener Misunderstood broke a long absence of songs from that album, while we also finally got the long-awaited return of the Cousin album closer Meant To Be, for which the band had made and promoted that roller-skating video a few months ago and then inexplicably stopped playing after said video came out. I’m not going to say we suggested both of those in the recap from Night 1, but ahem. “We better start playing that one more, or it’s gonna be the You Never Know of 2024,” Jeff said afterward.

 

Speaking of which, probably the most surprising return to the set at this show was You Never Know, the Wilco (The Album) single that Jeff admitted the band simply stopped playing for some reason. The band dusted it off a handful of times last year, including once in Iceland, but it really has been very sporadically performed since the original WtA album cycle and that’s too bad because it’s still quite a fun tune. It seems like Jeff and Co. have fun playing it as well, so hopefully it will find a second life somehow. (And incidentally, maybe someone can help remind me, but wasn’t that why Nels started playing that double neck guitar he uses on Dawned On Me in the first place? In order to play the George Harrison-style slide? When they played YNK tonight, Nels simply used his gold Les Paul.) “I think we should start playing that song again,” Jeff said afterward. “It felt really good. Oh well, too late now. Can we reissue it as a single?”

 

What else of note? Well, I guess you could say that Nels kind of had an interesting night. He sported these loose-fitting, vertically striped pants, which I guess you might say is slightly different than maybe we’re used to seeing from him — I guess I only ever remember seeing him in solid colors or jeans — and they kind of made him seem even taller than he is. For the first time I can remember, he also had a standing lap-steel station, instead of sitting down on a stool to play the instrument. He only played it a couple of times, on I Am My Mother and Jesus, etc., but it was just weird to see him standing up with the lap steel on top of a roadcase. It was especially notable on Jesus, when there were apparently some technical issues and once or twice Nels had to wander around the other side of the roadcase to check on a plug or something. Kind of odd.

 

Glenn, meanwhile, had to take a bit of grief from Jeff in the encore as he did the other night in Milwaukee. Jeff told the Salt Shed crowd that he was hesitant to start the count-in that starts Falling Apart (Right Now) because Glenn “might be e-mailing a cymbal company.” (This was an extension of a joke from soundcheck in Milwaukee when Glenn messed up the start of the song because he was on his phone, which of course Jeff couldn’t let him live down.)

 

Besides what I’ve already mentioned, there weren’t too many other noteworthy visits to Banter Corner. I noted one other brief mid-set interaction with Jeff and the audience when Jeff noted how he has a lot of songs that involve crying and/or tears and how somebody toward the front had told him they had cried during a song or something and how Jeff thought maybe they should have a designated “cryer” on stage. And later, Jeff simply thanked the Chicago crowd and said there wasn’t anywhere else the band would rather call home.

 

And true to form on the second night of a two-night run, those Wilcos sent us home nice and sweaty after 2 hours and 2 minutes with the good old rock block to close things out. Hopefully I didn’t scare the kids on the rail too much during that last bit, but hey, someone’s got to show them that you’re never too old to rock out, right? Especially when the band takes it to that extra gear with the bonus I’m A Wheel cherry on top…

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 (didn’t glimpse a printed setlist, so can’t say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Misunderstood

War On War

Side With The Seeds

I Am My Mother

Cruel Country

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

One Wing

If I Ever Was A Child

Evicted

Random Name Generator

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Cousin

Either Way

You Never Know

Impossible Germany

Whole Love

Meant To Be

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

I’m The Man Who Loves You

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

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)>

I’m A Wheel

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta

[keno]

What was Jeff saying about Carol’s on stage? Something about not having played a song since they played Carol’s in October 2022?

 

We couldn’t quite make it out, but had come to the Salt Shed directly from Carol’s earlier that day, and had gone to the surprise Carol's show, so it was kinda funny to hear him referencing it. 

Thanks for the recap, great location and weather for a show yesterday. 

[SecureTheShed]

Saturday’s Wilco Center Stage Spwarler…

 

hit the pavement HARD! 

Was responsive on the EMT chair, Chicago’s finest (CFP) ambulatory to local hospital as precaution requires. Happy to say, they’re AOK!!!

[bböp]

35 minutes ago, keno said:

What was Jeff saying about Carol’s on stage? Something about not having played a song since they played Carol’s in October 2022?

 

We couldn’t quite make it out, but had come to the Salt Shed directly from Carol’s earlier that day, and had gone to the surprise Carol's show, so it was kinda funny to hear him referencing it. 

He was just referring to the song Falling Apart (Right Now), which he said they had played during their set(s) at Carol’s and was pretty much made for Carol’s.

[Brian F.]

Wait, what?! Jeff actually said that about the "You Never Know" of 2024? The funny thing is, when I posted about "You Never Know" in the thread from Night One, they had already played it on Night Two and I didn't even realize it. I wrote the post, and then went and looked at the set list for Night Two. When I saw they had played "Meant to Be," I added a footnote to that effect to my post but didn't even notice "You Never Know" on the set list a few songs above it. Anyway, wow. I'm so excited at the prospect of this song returning to the repertoire that all I can say is "Synthesizer Patell!"

 

That comment about XRT is a very shrewd observation about how radio treats veteran rock acts. I can't speak from experience about XRT and Wilco, but I've seen enough instances of, for example, KROQ here in L.A. playing the new single from any of a number of bands that broke through in the '90s and running contests for listeners to call in and win tickets to see said bands, only to quickly abandon those new singles and go right back to playing the same three or four nostalgia songs from the '90s by those bands. Even U2 gets this treatment from rock radio.

 

I hope that fan is O.K. It's hard for me to picture anything happening in between "I Am My Mother" and "Cruel Country" since those two songs seem have been surgically grafted together since 2022.

[aricandover]

On 6/16/2024 at 9:39 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta

 It just hit me that you're Ken Barlow's uncle 

[DiamondClaw]

10 hours ago, Brian F. said:

That comment about XRT is a very shrewd observation about how radio treats veteran rock acts. I can't speak from experience about XRT and Wilco, but I've seen enough instances of, for example, KROQ here in L.A. playing the new single from any of a number of bands that broke through in the '90s and running contests for listeners to call in and win tickets to see said bands, only to quickly abandon those new singles and go right back to playing the same three or four nostalgia songs from the '90s by those bands. Even U2 gets this treatment from rock radio.

I'll stick up for XRT a little on this one. While of course they do tend to gravitate toward the older, best-known songs, they gave both "Evicted" and "Meant to Be" very good runs of pretty much daily (if not twice-daily) plays when they were released. They also sprinkle in cuts like "What Light" and "Love is Everywhere" enough to keep us honest.

[Brian F.]

That's good to hear. I tried to say that I couldn't speak for XRT since I don't live in Chicago, and my comment is reflecting the rock stations in my market.

[bböp]

3 hours ago, aricandover said:

 I just hit me that you're Ken Barlow's uncle 

Is that really an aricandover sighting? After all this time? Hey Jim! 

[Albert Tatlock]

4 hours ago, aricandover said:

 I just hit me that you're Ken Barlow's uncle 

Uncle-in-law to be specific. How do?

[worldrecordplayer]

"By my count, 16 of the 25 songs played on Night 2 weren’t played on Night 1."  A very good omen for the Beacon run.

[aricandover]

20 hours ago, bböp said:

Is that really an aricandover sighting? After all this time? Hey Jim! 

came out of deep lurker mode to make a Corrie reference .

HEY JIM!