bböp Posted May 8 Share Posted May 8 O, Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory...how do I not love thee? Let me count the ways. Is it the name itself (I don’t care to have my music coming out of a factory, thank you very much), or the utter Live Nation-ness of the place with its antiseptic feel, ugly steel and concrete architecture and general lack of character? Or the greediness in how the best seats are dynamically priced to hell, the concession and parking prices are inflated to outrageous levels and various VIP upgrade solicitations are repeatedly offered? Or just the general lack of consideration for the overall customer experience? Perhaps I doth protest too much. Grudgingly I must admit that despite its generic and cavernous atmosphere, the PaTMF did sound pretty good for the Wilco-hatchee tour stop here tonight. And at least from what I’ve seen on social media, the venue does seem to treat the artists who play there pretty well. But nevertheless, in my experience, this is a place to be tolerated and not really enjoyed. So it was that Jeff and Co. returned to the Irving venue after nearly eight years. That previous show in 2017 was memorable for the fact that, as Jeff mentioned, it came shortly after the passing of Tom Petty. In tribute, Wilco performed Petty’s The Waiting for the first time that night, one of only a handful of times the band ever did so. There were no covers tonight, but we did come close to getting a song from every Wilco studio release with only Wilco (The Album) being left out. Now I highly doubt that Jeff is lurking about these parts anymore, but I will say that in my little blurb about the San Antonio show the night before, I mentioned that there were no songs from Being There, Star Wars or Schmilco in the set and, lo and behold, all three were represented in Irving. The most notable of these, of course, were the excellent Cold Slope>King Of You, which made its debut on this tour. “We don’t play that one very often,” Jeff said of the two intertwined songs. “It’s from an album called Star Wars.” Almost immediately, of course, someone shouted out a request for Passenger Side. To which Jeff replied, “We appreciate your yelling the names of our songs. We appreciate you knowing the names of our songs. But sadly, we’ve already made a list of the ones we want to play.” Those included the pairing of Box Full Of Letters and Annihilation, which has been common on this run and led to one of the most amusing moments of the show. As Jeff has done elsewhere, he joked about putting one of the band’s oldest songs next to one of its most recent “so you can see the staggering artistic growth. It’s staggering. There’s 30 years between those (two songs).” Jeff then continued, “How did the Beatles change so much in seven years? How did Wilco stay the fucking same band in 30 years?” Pat then took the opportunity to make the rare on-mike comment during a show when he quipped, “Wilco moved one fret.” But Jeff seemed not to get the joke and gave Pat sort of a quizzical look, which caused the multi-instrumentalist to give a “never mind” wave and ask if his mike was indeed on. Jeff then jokingly instructed the front-of-house engineer Jared to cut Pat’s vocal mike and that basically ended the amusing little back-and-forth. For whatever reason, maybe to try and forge at least some connection with the audience within the abyss of the PaTMF, Jeff was definitely chattier than usual. Before Box Full Of Letters, he spotted what seemed to be a father and daughter standing next to each other in the front row and asked if they were having a good time. “Is he embarrassing you?” Jeff asked the daughter, whose father was dancing a bit. I guess she must have nodded yes because Jeff then said, “It’s all right. Dads can’t control themselves when Wilco plays. You’re being very tolerant.” A bit earlier, Jeff had checked in with the audience and, for some reason, asked, “Do you have a sports team engaged in some kind of competition? I don’t know why I asked that. I just saw the tallboys of beer and thought it must be nearby.” When someone informed Jeff that the Dallas Stars were playing, but in Winnipeg, he took the news in stride. “Oh, OK. See, that’s why I don’t talk into the mike as much as some (other frontmen do).” Other visits to Banter Corner included the aforementioned recollection about Petty; a random moment when Jeff showed off a glowing little toy of some sort that somehow appeared on his amp and quipped that it “won’t remember any of the bad notes I played,”; and some joking about it being Wilco Wednesday — as opposed to Taco Tuesday — and how all the best shows are on Wednesday. Jeff also made a comment about how Annihilation was the last new song of the show. “Don’t cheer that,” he said. The crowd at the far-from-sold-out PaTMF did cheer plenty over the course of the 2-hour, 1-minute set, but in another drawback of the cavernous space, any sort of audible audience roar just seemed to dissipate into the air. It’s a bit hard to describe, but any sound that isn’t amplified in there feels sort of deadened somehow. It just isn’t a very lively room — at least that’s my take on it. Then again, my expectations for this gig going in were certainly realistic — and tempered. So in my mind, it was never going to be a great show. That it was as enjoyable as it was had to do with Wilco’s performance as much as anything else. Here was the complete setlist, as played (I glimpsed the printed setlist and there were no changes/omissions): Wishful Thinking Evicted Handshake Drugs If I Ever Was A Child War On War Cruel Country Quiet Amplifier You Are My Face> Whole Love Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull Hummingbird Via Chicago Cold Slope> King Of You Either Way Impossible Germany Meant To Be Jesus, etc. Box Full Of Letters Annihilation Heavy Metal Drummer I'm The Man Who Loves You ------------------------------------ California Stars Falling Apart (Right Now) I Got You (At The End Of The Century) 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bböp Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 For anyone who cares, here was Waxahatchee's setlist at the PaTMF: 3 Sisters Can't Do Much Problem With It [Plains] The Eye Hell Right Back To It Crowbar The Wolves Lilacs Tigers Blood Fire Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Albert Tatlock Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 Not a New Order fan then? Ta anyway. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bböp Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 4 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said: Not a New Order fan then? Ta anyway. Record label factories are cool, just not corporate music venues lol. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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