Jeff Tweedy — 26 October 2024, Mill Valley, CA (Sweetwater Music Hall)

[bböp]

Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect before we were allowed into the intimate confines of the Sweetwater Music Hall for tonight's "benefit gala" that was also another stop on Jeff's current solo jaunt across the country. I'm reasonably certain that none of the other shows on this run have featured tickets starting at $265 per person for general admission standing room and increasing to over $1000 for special seats and tables for four (as per the event's own press release) or had a live auction for several VIP concert experiences and a no-longer-produced Tweedy Martin 00-DB acoustic guitar that raised thousands more dollars to benefit the non-profit arts organization for which the Sweetwater venue is the namesake.

 

With those four-top tables of big spenders, er, generous contributors taking up most of the floor area in front of the stage, leaving the GA folks to cram in on the sides and by the back bar, the capacity of the already-small room was probably reduced to about 175 total. And if I had to hazard a guess, maybe half of those people were actual fans of Jeff and/or Wilco as opposed to more general Sweetwater supporters. All of which made it unlikely that this was going to be a show that featured anything but a pretty run-of-the-mill setlist or basic banter.

 

But the thing about Jeff's solo shows is that, in my opinion, there is always something that makes them worth attending if only because every audience is different and you never know what interesting or funny or cringe-worthy thing might happen because of some random interaction or utterance. So even though Jeff started the show tonight with the identical pair of songs he opened with at the previous night's show in Grass Valley, joking that he was trying to play the exact same set he had there because he was sure there was plenty of crossover between the two audiences, it didn't take long before there were some entertaining goings-on.

 

If you've seen enough of Jeff's solo performances, you wouldn't have been surprised that, in such a setting, most of his early banter during the 90-minute set centered on the various ways he felt uncomfortable and was trying to find his footing. Almost immediately, he took issue with the television at the back bar showing him on stage — which was sort of ridiculous given how small the room was. "I'm on TV back there, and it's freaking me out," he said after his opening number. "Is there something else we can put on? I honestly had no idea I looked like that. I've avoided mirrors for decades." Then he introduced Evergreen by saying, "I'm gonna play a song about my dead dad because it's Saturday night. These are the most festive songs I have." And then after thanking whomever mercifully turned off the TV, Jeff said he was "wracking my brain for songs that would fit this environment. I've played a lot of outdoor festivals and this is similar."

 

Jeff still seemed to be finding his footing during the middle part of the set when he put on a harmonica rack before Via Chicago and then preceded the song with an explanation of how he had been avoiding playing the harmonica on this tour because of his "unkempt" mustache and beard and how some of his facial hairs would get caught in the harmonica. If his eyes suddenly welled up with tears during the song, he said, that's what happened. But instead of starting the song, Jeff then got briefly distracted by the towers of canapés that some tables near the front had ordered — to be fair, we all were wondering what kind of snacks these triple-tiered stands that resembled what you might see during a high tea service contained — and commented on them before pronouncing this "the worst intro to this song I've ever done." Quipped Jeff afterward: "I'm the most transparent performer you've ever seen. It's like Bring Your Inner Dialogue To Work Day every day."

 

But some of the most amusing moments were still to come, such as when a guy at one of the tables right in front of Jeff got up and left between songs. I'm pretty sure it had been the same guy Jeff had sort of singled out early on in the show because of the way the guy had apparently been craning his neck, which caused Jeff to say he was worried about his alignment, asked if he was all right and suggested he might turn his chair a bit to make it a little easier to see. When that (same?) guy got up later, Jeff riffed on how after doing this for so many years, he could "pick out people having a bad time (like a lion does) a gazelle on the savanna." An entire audience could seemingly be enjoying themselves and, Jeff said, he could quickly identify the one person who wasn't.

 

It had sort of been a running joke during the set because of the "craning neck" guy that Jeff had joked that he would play at an angle to the microphone, which he occasionally demonstrated, and when the guy apparently left, Jeff did it again and briefly recalled a show when he had some trouble with an audience member who stood at an angle to the stage, in an almost-menacing way. For the record, that happened on June 23, 2023 on the second night of Jeff's four-night stint at Brooklyn Made when a heckler under the influence of something or another disrupted that show and eventually left or was escorted out (and later was asked not to come back for another show during that run).

 

Speaking of audiences, there were also a couple of other classic "types" that always seem to surface at a show like this. One was the lone "stalwart" clapper who stayed with it throughout most of Hummingbird and who apparently insisted they were right on beat, which Jeff agreed with but also pointed out that because of "how sound works," the sound of the clapping didn't reach him until "about eight milliseconds after." There was also the slightly inebriated woman also near the front, off to Jeff's right, who apparently kept making awkward comments throughout the show and in whose honor Jeff — as usual — broke out Passenger Side.

 

The house lights mysteriously came on right around then, after Jeff had made his usual comments about how this would usually be the point in the show when he would go off stage and wait for people to applaud for him to come back, causing him to look around quizzically and ask, "Is that the end of the show? My encores are as long as I want them to be." That drew some cheers and Jeff indeed played a few more numbers, but it wouldn't be too much longer before he finally did call it a night. Of course there was one more barb about the canapés — "You've hardly touched your food tower..." — and soon after that, the sound of one final shattered glass somewhere in the room provided Jeff with his cue to exit stage left. It was that kind of evening, I suppose.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, in Mill Valley:

 

Story To Tell

Normal American Kids

Evergreen

Ambulance

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

You And I

Via Chicago (w/harmonica)

Dawned On Me

A Lifetime To Find

Gwendolyn

Having Been Is No Way To Be

New Madrid

An Empty Corner

Hummingbird

Impossible Germany

Passenger Side

Jesus, etc.

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

California Stars

[Albert Tatlock]

A special seated Ta from my plush table for one. I have just finished some ham and cheese sandwiches as I was reading by the way. They did not quite size up to a tower though.

 

P.S. Imagine paying circa 850 quid for a ticket and then having the performer heckle you throughout the performance.

[kidsmoke]

Bbop, you've outdone yourself. I laughed so hard at the canapés that I started to choke & had to sit forward in my chair, before I could read the rest.

 

Aww, Jeff Tweedy, where would we be without your outlook? It's a treasure. 

 

Thank you for documenting these days, Paul.