Jeff Tweedy — 22 October 2024, Jackson, WY (The Center)

[bböp]

I've occasionally joked in recent years about it being "The Era of Good Feelings" when it comes to being a Wilco/Jeff Tweedy fan, and I can certainly vouch for the fact that Jeff has mellowed over the years when it comes to audience behaviors that might once have set him off. Whether it is people taking video on their phones during shows, chatty crowds or just random hecklers, I would say that the Jeff of 2006 (when he infamously ranted at an impolite audience at Portland's Crystal Ballroom, as captured on the Sunken Treasure: Solo In The Pacific Northwest DVD) is not the same as the Jeff of 2024.

 

You might even say that the Jeff of 2024 is "super chill" when it comes to most things, having long ago cemented his place within a certain musical pantheon. But that doesn't mean every show now goes smoothly or without some annoyances, perceived or otherwise. And that also doesn't mean that Jeff can always hide his feelings or manage to let everything roll off his back.

 

So it was that tonight's sold-out solo performance at the relatively intimate (500-seat) venue will almost certainly be remembered less for what Jeff played and more for his repeated vexation at the whispering coming from a certain pocket of the audience to his left. He first mentioned it four songs into his set, after Radio King, when he pointed to a certain area and asked if there were some people talking and said, "I can hear everything. It's an acoustic sweet spot where I'm standing." He went on to joke that he could hear so well that he could tell what kind of beer someone had just opened up. A few songs later, he seemed to settle down a bit — having said "Let's soldier on," at one point — and thanked the anonymous chatters for "not whispering as much. Thanks for taking that criticism on board."

 

That appeared to be the end of it, but then the situation blew up again in the second half of the set when Jeff brought up what he was hearing again and went on one of the first rants I can remember in a while, saying that he wished he was a better performer that he could ignore it when he heard chattering going on while he was playing but that he wasn't and adding that "it feels rude" of people to do that. He questioned whether he should just play loud songs, but then dismissed that idea and went back to trying to identify the whisperers he seemed to hear, adding that it would be one thing if everyone had been talking but that because it was just a few whispers he could hear in an otherwise silent room, that made it even worse. The height of the awkwardness probably came when Jeff suggested that he could understand if some people in the audience weren't familiar with his songs and didn't really want to be there and, if so, they could leave and he would refund their money.

 

At one point, Jeff even suggested the house lights be raised and looked over to his left and asked the guilty parties to speak up. Of course no one did, and that seemed to annoy Jeff even more as he suggested he could even hear the whispers while he was talking about the whispering — which he called "unbelievable." Toward the end of the rant, he even called upon your humble correspondent to attest that he had improved over the years when it came to such situations. "Back in the day, I (would have) gotten mad, so let's have a round of applause for me," Jeff said. "Now I'm super chill." The episode concluded when he spotted a woman in the front row who had a very encouraging smile and look on her face the entire night, asking her if her job involved working with small children.

 

I suppose you can draw your own conclusions from that last bit, that perhaps Jeff knew he was acting a little irrationally, but it's not my place to say one way or the other or, really, to make any assumptions. Jeff clearly believed he was hearing what he was hearing and obviously it bothered him. That's what I observed. I will say that I personally didn't hear any whispering from where I was sitting and a couple of friends I talked to afterward said they didn't hear it either. Then again, I will say that I personally wasn't in the greatest shape to fully concentrate on every little detail, having had a bit of an epic journey to the show: flying back back to Chicago from Los Angeles early Monday morning for one day and then turning around and catching another flight to Salt Lake City this morning and driving four and a half hours. I only bring this up because it was reported by multiple outlets that Jeff participated in a private fundraiser with Barack Obama and JB Pritzker in Chicago on his off night Monday, which meant he probably had to fly home Monday morning after playing in Omaha the night before and then catch a flight to Wyoming this morning to make it in time for the show tonight. I know I was a little tired at the show, and I didn't have to entertain a paying audience.

 

"How are you doing?" one audience member yelled out two songs into the show, after Jeff had done his initial audience check-in. "It's irrelevant," Jeff replied. "I'm here to do a job, sir." It's something Jeff has said before at other shows, certainly half jokingly, but looking back on it, I wonder if it maybe was an early indication of his state of mind tonight.

 

Whether it was because of fatigue or just being in a weird mood, Jeff certainly did some other things tonight that were a little out of the ordinary. For example, he went into full-on storyteller mode before a few songs, expounding on them in ways I had and hadn't heard him do before, all after telling the audience about one of his "singer-songwriter pet peeves" being when an artist would talk about a composition and then that explanation being immediately evident in the song's title. Of course he regaled the crowd with a version of his story about being a teenage liquor store manager before An Empty Corner. But he also discussed New Madrid in more detail than I ever remember him doing, talking about how the prediction of an earthquake along the New Madrid (and he gave the proper pronunciation, as he knew it, for all those "new mattress" jokers) fault near his hometown that brought all sorts of news crews in from New York. "It was like the first time they were encountering each other," Jeff said of the Big Media types and folks in Belleville, Ill., mentioning "Katie Couric and a barfly." "It was like encountering an alien world." Another brief instance of explication came before Gwendolyn, which Jeff described as being about his adolescence and "girls who were further along than I was. It was terrifying."

 

Fortunately, Jeff left Wyoming on a relatively good note. Amazingly this was only the second time he has performed in the state, following an appearance by Wilco at the inaugural Jackson Hole Music Festival in 2008, and he mentioned how lovely the area was and that he had been able to take a walk in the hills prior to the show (though he said he nearly died). And he loosened up the tension following his whispering outburst by playing Lou Reed Was My Babysitter and encouraging the crowd to "Whoo!" along with him. It took the Jacksonians a couple of passes to get the timing right, but that helped the mood in the room. Then he shared the story about not playing every guitar he had on stage and how some audience members seemed to get angered by that — see my Night 3 in Woodstock recap for the details — and eventually picked up the 12-string guitar he had behind him and played an excellent Kamera as well as Meant To Be on it. That was followed by a couple more tunes, including the story about dedicating (or not) I'm The Man Who Loves You to his wife, and then it was off into the night. Certainly it was a night I won't soon forget, and definitely an interesting one on which to make my return to the tour.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played:

 

The Universe

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Ambulance

Radio King

I Am My Mother

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

An Empty Corner

New Madrid

Impossible Germany

A Lifetime To Find

Evergreen

Dawned On Me

Please Tell My Brother

Jesus, etc.

You And I

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Kamera

Meant To Be

Whole Love

I'm The Man Who Loves You

[nalafej]

Excellent recap as always, bbop! Great, but too brief chat too.

 

My wife and I were lucky enough to score 3rd row center tickets for the show. It was a unique one! Ultimately, probably not in a good way.

 

Jeff sounded so great - outstanding guitar playing and spot on vocals. I didn't catch a single flub. I thought the setlist flowed very nicely and I'm more convinced than ever that Cruel Country will go down as a top tier Wilco release.

 

Jeff's exasperation was a bummer. The crowd was very quiet from where I sat. Like, one of the more respectful crowds. Period. I'm confident Jeff was hearing something and I wish that weren't the case. We like chill Jeff and his songs about mortality and want him to happily present those gloomy tunes.

 

I loved the story telling in front of Lifetime to Find which was a highlight and it was so great to hear Radio King which I hadn't for quite a while.

 

Is it surprising to anybody else that Jeff isn't commenting on the election? Not even a non-partisan message.

 

Really glad to have caught this one - the 45th state in which I've seen Mr. Tweedy perform.

 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta. Now back to my new second daily ritual of a Blossoms pubcast episode. I'm about 11 months behind but will catch up eventually. 

Next week (11 months ago) they hit LA apparently.