Wilco — 7 December 2024, Austin, TX (ACL Live at the Moody Theater) [Night 3 of 3]

[bböp]

And just like that — 98 different songs, six full sets, three encores and a partridge in a pear tree — the first chapter of Wilco's "Winterlude On The Road" experiment drew to a close tonight. I'd say it pretty much was a resounding success.

 

As Jeff mentioned each night in Austin, the idea behind this relatively brief tour was to bring the type of unique shows that the band has played in Chicago over the years under the Winterlude moniker to some different markets. These were special shows in which the band treated fans to such achievements as playing 100 unique songs over five nights, performing in venues that got progressively smaller in size and doing every song that it had ever recorded up to that point. In taking Winterlude outside of Chicago this year, Jeff and Co. put together two separate sets of music (plus a short encore) each night for the first time ever and delved into a number of rarities — many of which stemmed from the so-called "deep cuts" set at the Solid Sound Festival earlier this year.

 

That was certainly true of the Night 3 encore, which was identical to the one from that Solid Sound set minus the pandemic-era tune Tell Your Friends. I kept thinking, even expecting, that we would get a Spiders (Kidsmoke) finale, but I should have known better. Instead, the delightfully fun trio of Let''s Not Get Carried Away (featuring Jeff on the "Flying V" guitar that made an appearance each of the first two nights, as well as the always-entertaining Glenn drum solo), Kicking Television and Just A Kid sent us off into the drizzly Austin night. It might not have been the preferred conclusion for some of the more casual fans in attendance, but I'm pretty sure the die-hards were into it. Ahem.

 

(It occurred to me afterward that it would be funny if Glenn got to tease Jeff for his Flying V the way Jeff had poked fun at him not only in anticipation of the drum solo — Jeff jokingly asked Glenn prior to Let's Not Get Carried Away if he "needed to warm up," — but also for his "little cymbal." It's kind of hard to do justice to the image of this small cymbal perched atop one of Glenn's larger cymbals for Can't Stand It, but it was amusing. "I'm surprised it doesn't have its own mike," Jeff quipped. Then again, the Flying V exudes rock 'n' roll, while the tiny cymbal, well, does not. If only he had the gong! Poor Glenn.)

 

But anyway, I digress. Even on the third night of this no-repeats mini-residency — when you could somewhat predict what songs would be played based simply on what hadn't been played yet — Wilco managed to keep its audience on its proverbial toes. One example of this came just three songs into the first set, which had been established over the first two nights as kind of an acoustic-focused run of songs with Jeff playing almost exclusively acoustic guitar. You wouldn't expect the relatively noisy Art Of Almost to fit in there, but the band performed a mesmerizing acoustic arrangement of The Whole Love tune that mirrored and expanded on the way Jeff performs the song during his solo acoustic shows.

 

A bit later during the first set, Jeff introduced the Cruel Country deep cut Sad Kind Of Way by saying, "I don't know how many times we've played this song live. Not a lot." He was definitely right about that, considering it was just the second time the full band has done the song — the first time being at the 2022 edition of Solid Sound when it played the album in its entirety. Another Cruel Country track, Many Worlds, closed out the first set and I don't have the stats on how many times the full version has been performed live, but it also hasn't been all that common.

 

The second set began, as many shows Wilco has played in support of Cousin have, with that album's opener, Infinite Surprise. But once again, Jeff changed things up by using an acoustic guitar (a model with several knobs on it that I don't remember Jeff using before, but on which he played more than a couple of songs tonight) instead of the usual electric. Other highlights from the second set included two songs from Hot Sun Cool Shroud, Annihilation and Say You Love Me, which you knew were coming at some point given the EP's official physical release the previous week. And the band cut loose toward the end of the set on Walken and Kingpin, the latter of which was sort of an odd version with a long guitar jam before Jeff actually got back to the "Statue of Liberty play..." part. It seemed like he was never going to come back to it and he finally did, but then the song just ended without the last line ("How can I give my love to you when I don't know what to do.") or any of the usual crowd interaction/antics. Also, did Jeff change one of the "Pekins" to Austin? It was hard to tell.

 

As with Nights 1 and 2, Jeff didn't make many extended visits to Banter Corner. Aside from his jabs at Glenn, Jeff briefly reiterated what had become sort of a running joke over the three nights in Austin about one person periodically yelling out an individual word of encouragement and how he was surprised that no one really had done that yet on Night 3. Of course that led to any number of people shouting out various things, to which Jeff replied, "It doesn't work if you all do it at once." He also rehashed a line he has used before after donning a harmonica rack for the first and only time during the run on She's A Jar: "That motherfucking harmonica holder pulled out half my beard," Jeff complained. "That's some Navy SEALs training for a singer-songwriter. ... I think I passed." And toward the end of the show, Jeff also commented on the damp, dreary conditions in the Texas capital the past few days by saying that when he and his bandmates decided to bring Winterlude to a city like Austin, they figured it would at least have nicer weather than Chicago in the winter. "We thought the weather was never gonna be (inclement), so I guess that's on us," he said. "It's gonna be nice when we leave."

 

Fortunately these shows weren't outdoors at Stubb's or one of the other amphitheaters around town. For this mini-residency anyway, the relatively cozy confines of the Moody Theater seemed just right. Jeff and his bandmates, of course, have a long and storied performance history in Austin, were inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame in this very same room in 2021 and are obviously beloved by plenty of people around these parts. It seems reasonably safe to say that, after three more memorable outings this week, Wilco has even further cemented its legacy here and added yet another chapter to its still-growing history.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 3 at the Moody Theater (didn't get a look at a printed setlist, so can't say if there were any changes/omissions it appears there was only one change/omission from the printed setlist, which was Red-Eyed and Blue — sadly — not being played before I Got You):

 

Set 1

Wishful Thinking

Evicted

Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)

Muzzle Of Bees

Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic with no harmonica)

She's A Jar

Either Way

Handshake Drugs

Via Chicago

Tired Of Taking It Out On You

Sad Kind Of Way

Ashes Of American Flags

You And I

Forget The Flowers

Meant To Be

Many Worlds

 

Set 2

Infinite Surprise

Annihilation

At Least That's What You Said

Hummingbird

A Magazine Called Sunset

Can't Stand It

Sonny Feeling

Say You Love Me

Impossible Germany

Passenger Side

Dawned On Me

Walken

Kingpin

Heavy Metal Drummer

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

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

Let's Not Get Carried Away

Kicking Television

Just A Kid

[nalafej]

Hell of a three night run it seems! Thanks for the excellent coverage as always bbop.

[wilcolovesyou]

[The Inside of Outside]

That was so much fun.

 

It looks like they played 15 of the Deep Cuts from Night 1 of Soild Sound over the 3 nights in Austin. As for this show, I loved that they played more off of Cousin and Hot Sun Cool Shroud. I picked the right night to go as far as that was concerned.

 

They also played every song from Night 2 of Soild Sound over the three nights with the exception of Spiders (Kidsmoke). I was thinking Spiders was coming in the encore as well, but I was happy with what we got (and they had played a lot off of AGIB as it was).

 

Standouts for me were Sunken Treasure, Handshake Drugs, Ashes of American Flags, Meant to Be, Many Worlds, Annihilation, Can't Stand It (not one that I usually look forward to, but this version seemed harder edged to me), Say You Love Me, and the final four songs.

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta

8 hours ago, bböp said:

Not a lot

Didn’t know JT was a Paul Daniel’s fan.

[bböp]

4 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Ta

Didn’t know JT was a Paul Daniel’s fan.

 

Yet again, I had to Google to understand what you were talking about.

 

To quote the esteemed Scott McOi, I'm not bitter. #NotAtAll #JustALot

[Albert Tatlock]

14 hours ago, bböp said:

Yet again, I had to Google to understand what you were talking about

I was wondering if you would take the bait :-)

I wrap myself in a shroud of enigma - mostly to conceal my circa 1979 Undertones dress sense, or to put it another way that you might have to Google - my John Noakes circa 1975 dress sense. 

That is what children's TV was like for us in the 70s. Still gives me cold sweats.