Wilco — 6 May 2025, San Antonio, TX (The Espee)

[bböp]

Though it had been less than eight years since Wilco’s last show in San Antonio — not nearly as long a gap as some areas, especially when you consider that the band had played three “Evening With…” shows just up Interstate 35 in Austin in December — it had been nearly two decades since a proper general admission show by the band in the seventh largest U.S. city by population.

Back then, in 2006, Jeff and his bandmates had performed at a downtown plaza/amphitheater called Sunset Station in the shadow of the Alamodome. Since then, that plaza has apparently been renamed the Espee (in honor of the Southern Pacific railroad station nearby…Es-pee, get it?) and Wilco finally made it back there tonight on a steamy Central Texas evening. I can’t say what the view is like from the plaza itself, but if you had a ticket for the section underneath the covered pavilion area, you were treated to a pretty intimate audience with the band. And if you were one of the lucky 150 or so with a ticket to the GA pit area within that pavilion that was weirdly cordoned off by these yellow barricades, then you really had an up close and personal experience.

“It’s good to be back,” Jeff said a song into the two-hour set, “I think a lot of you weren’t born the last time we were here. But it’s good to see you. We’re gonna keep the chit chat to a minimum because we’ve got a lot of songs to play for you.”

The view must not have been too bad from anywhere, though (or the audience was just particularly amped up) judging by the response during Heavy Metal Drummer to Glenn’s stick twirl. That bit, which has become a common ritual during that song, drew one of the loudest cheers I can remember hearing, and it caused Jeff to almost mess up because he was so surprised. He audibly said, “Wow,” as he mockingly pooh-poohed the crowd reaction with a dismissive wave. In response, I’m pretty sure Glenn even got in an unprecedented second stick twirl before the song was over.

Another random bit of crowd interaction occurred at the start of the encore, during California Stars, when something seemed to catch Jeff’s attention in the front row to his right. I couldn’t see exactly what was going on and wasn’t close enough to hear, but it seemed like an older woman had somehow made her way up there and was possibly waving a bandanna or something (I initially thought it might be a bra). Anyway, Jeff gestured toward her at least once during the song, then blew a kiss her way afterward and proceeded to have a brief chat with her, asking if she had been there the whole time and trying to understand what she was trying to say. Jeff asked if she was related to Pat, then John, then if she was related to any of the band members before it finally came out that she might be somehow related to Woody Guthrie.

Those occurrences aside, it was a relatively light night for visits to Banter Corner. Jeff had mentioned before Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull that the lyrics to that song were aas old as the Alamo and he reiterated that later in the set before Box Full Of Letters when he said this is “the oldest song we’re gonna play…The lyrics to that other song are older than the Alamo, though — look it up. This one’s just regular old.”

A couple of songs later, he thanked the crowd for singing along to I’m Always In Love, explaining that when he made an inviting gesture with his hand, he was urging the crowd to participate. “I’m not David Lee Roth,” Jeff said, explaining that he wasn’t the type of person to explicitly ask an audience to sing along but that he encouraged it. Then Jeff quipped, before Annihilation, “This is a new song, so try your best.” And Jeff also took the opportunity before Heavy Metal Drummer to thank Waxahatchee for joining him and his bandmates on this tour and dedicated the song to Katie Crutchfield and her band “for no real reason” (although I can think of at least one. Incidentally, by the way, Waxahatchee has been dedicating the song Lilacs to Wilco each night.)

That was about it for noteworthy events and chatter, which Jeff really did seem to keep to a minimum on what proved to be a mostly pleasant, though humid, Texas spring night despite stormy weather earlier in the day. I thought it was a fine show overall and the sound mix was good up front despite hearing later from the band’s front-of-house engineer that the cement pavilion wasn’t the best place to operate from an acoustic standpoint.

Setlist-wise, it was a good mix of songs from across the Wilco spectrum, though once again there was a total absence of Being There material (as well as Star Wars and Schmilco). I know no one ever looks at such setlist minutiae, except maybe Jeff, but I did think it was interesting that a full third of the band’s set at its last San Antonio show at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in 2017 — nine of 27 songs — came from those three records that were completely unrepresented this time around. I guess it just goes to show that if you wait long enough, you’ll probably hear the song you came to hear...eventually.

Here was the complete setlist, as played (Either Way was listed on the printed setlist as the first song of the encore, but wasn't played):

Company In My Back

Evicted

Handshake Drugs

Via Chicago

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart>

Hints

Side With The Seeds

Hummingbird

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Whole Love

Meant To Be

Cruel Country

Quiet Amplifier

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

I'm Always In Love

Annihilation

Heavy Metal Drummer>

I'm The Man Who Loves You

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

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

A Shot In The Arm

[bböp]

Waxatchee's set, for anyone who might be interested, was:

 

3 Sisters

Can't Do Much

Problem With It [Plains]

Right Back To It

Witches

Crowbar

The Wolves

Hurricane [Plains]

Lilacs

Tigers Blood

Fire

[Albert Tatlock]

4 hours ago, bböp said:

it might be a bra

I wonder if that has ever happened for Wilco, ha!

Ta.

[theashtraysays]

On 5/7/2025 at 4:30 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I wonder if that has ever happened for Wilco, ha!

Ta.

I have a recording of a fairly recent-ish show I think from Louisville where panties were thrown into the stage which got some commentary from Jeff that it “harkened back to younger days” before adding “alas”.