Jeff Tweedy — 23 October 2024, Salt Lake City, UT (Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center)

[bböp]

My sincere apologies to the dwindling number of people who actually tune in for these musings of mine for the delay in posting something about this show. Hey, what are off days for if not getting to the next gig and actually trying to maintain some semblance of health? Anyway, that's a poor excuse for not getting something up sooner but that's all I've got. I suppose it's sort of in keeping with the rhythm of a tour which, incidentally, is what Jeff seems to have settled into as this cross-country jaunt starts to wind down over the next week upon reaching California.

 

In the last pre-Cali show of the run, Jeff was back on relatively familiar ground after making his solo début in Wyoming the other night. Salt Lake City is a place that Jeff and Wilco have played pretty regularly over the years (although I don't think he had ever performed at this particular venue before). But certainly there was some level of familiarity with the market and, accordingly, there was a kind of assumed loyalty with a good portion of the audience, something that perhaps Jeff didn't sense as much at the previous show in Jackson. It was clear he hadn't quite gotten over an awkward night there — see previous post — because two songs into tonight's performance, after his first check-in with the audience, Jeff brought up the specter of that earlier outing.

 

"I heard some (commotion) going on, some shushing and stuff; is everyone OK?" Jeff asked, pointing at a particular section of the theater. "You wouldn't have believed the assholes last night. Just saying you guys could do a whole bunch of stuff and be better than Jackson, Wyoming."

 

It wouldn't be the last time Jeff brought up Jackson during the show. About halfway through the set, there was a moment while he switched guitars before Gwendolyn when someone in the crowd shouted an apparent request for I'm The Man Who Loves You. Then another woman(?) piggybacked on that by yelling, "No, Jeff, I'm the man that loves you!" Sensing an opportunity, Jeff deadpanned, "Now I'm wishing for the audience in Jackson. At least they didn't pander. They were honest with their indifference." Then at the very end of the show, just before he started his final song, Jeff as usual walked back his comments a bit when he told the Salt Lake crowd, "Don't tell people you know in Jackson I said mean things about them." Ummmm, oops?

 

At any rate, I'll stop short of saying that the Salt Lake show was a capital-P "professional" show, but it certainly showed that Jeff has gotten into a nice rhythm in terms of show flow. He seems to have figured out the core skeleton of his set for a single-night show in terms of what songs he wants to play (and what songs he can play well right now) and he just seems to be much more comfortable on stage than at the start of the tour. Of course that also unfortunately means he has all but abandoned the newer songs he had been sprinkling in, such as KC Rain, Enough and Mine Forever, in favor of a set made up mostly of songs from such later Wilco releases as Cruel Country, Cousin and Hot Sun Cool Shroud.

 

The mention of the latter provided one interesting bit of banter that I didn't even know when Jeff revealed that the title of that EP came from a small chain of Chicago Asian restaurants called Hot Woks Cool Sushi. "That what I was thinking about," he said. "See, that's the kind of stuff you can take home as a fan. Nobody knows that shit."

 

This was indeed a more relaxed Jeff, for whatever reason. He gently poked fun at the Utah audience over the course of the 93-minute set, shooting down an early request for a singalong by joking that "we haven't gotten to know each other that well yet." Of course, that singalong would come in the second half of the set on Jesus, etc., and by the end of the show, Jeff was even searching for another song he could play that the audience could sing along with, eventually settling on I'm Always In Love. The one newish song played, Lou Reed Was My Babysitter, has become a staple on this tour and also provided its usual levity and opportunity for crowd participation, even though once again it took the crowd a couple of times to get the proper timing on the "whoos," causing Jeff to lament at one point, "Wow, somehow it's getting worse. Want me to conduct you?"

 

Another funny little running joke over the course of the night involved Jeff's not being able to see anyone in the audience, and preferring the "cognitive dissonance" of not knowing the makeup of the people watching him. "I assume you're a very young audience, about 70 percent women..." Jeff joked. While the crowd demographics almost certainly were not that, it was nevertheless a group of folks that largely were already in the Tweedy camp, so to speak. And that ultimately made for a show that, while safe in some respects, felt comfortable and successful and sent most attendees out into the night feeling like they had gotten their money's worth.

 

Adding to that feeling even more was support act Elizabeth Moen (playing in a duo setup with her friend Gus Martini). She has opened the entire tour with a short, but enjoyable set that features mostly original songs with one cover rotated in. Among the different covers performed have been Bruce Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Willie Nelson's Hands On The Wheel. Tonight, Moen and Martini débuted a new cover, M.J. Lenderman's She's Leaving You off the much-acclaimed recent release Manning Fireworks, which was a nice surprise. Anyway, it's been nice to be able to watch the Chicago pair perform at each show I've been able to catch.

 

Here was Jeff's complete setlist, as played, for Salt Lake City:

 

The Universe

Impossible Germany

Family Ghost

Sunlight Ends

I Am My Mother

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Ambulance

Evicted

Say You Love Me

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Box Full Of Letters (waltz arrangement)

New Madrid

An Empty Corner

A Lifetime To Find

Jesus, etc.

You And I

Please Tell My Brother

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Laminated Cat aka Not For The Season

I'm Always In Love

I'm The Man Who Loves You

[DiamondClaw]

2 hours ago, bböp said:

My sincere apologies to the dwindling number of people who actually tune in for these musings of mine for the delay in posting something about this show. Hey, what are off days for if not getting to the next gig and actually trying to maintain some semblance of health? Anyway, that's a poor excuse for not getting something up sooner but that's all I've got. I suppose it's sort of in keeping with the rhythm of a tour which, incidentally, is what Jeff seems to have settled into as this cross-country jaunt starts to wind down over the next week upon reaching California.

Say what now? There are still plenty of us 'round these parts who tune in for these!

[kidsmoke]

Loving your reportage as always, bbop! Elizabeth Moen is great. What a voice!

[nalafej]

Wonderful report, bbop. Take care of yourself out there on the road. 

 

No comment on the bear he left in the wake of his hasty Wyoming departure, eh?

 

I would kill (ok, not really and certainly not a bear) to have heard that MJ cover.

[bböp]

3 hours ago, DiamondClaw said:

Say what now? There are still plenty of us 'round these parts who tune in for these!

Well thanks, though I’d say “plenty” is a generous assessment. Hell, I don’t even think some actual friends of mine read these anymore. 

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta. A delay is fine - makes for a more chilled reading on a weekend instead of a sneaky one while supposedly working (though I suppose tea breaks are a mandatory workers right). Also, what I've realised is that as avid a reader of your reports as I am, I don't know (or remember) what a good third of the songs on the setlist sound like.