Wilco — 23 June 2025, Paris, France (La Cigale)

[bböp]

With the afterglow of a “Big Show” at the Royal Albert Hall still lingering, Jeff and his bandmates stepped onto a slightly less glamorous — but far more familiar — stage in the City of Light about 24 hours later and found themselves instantly more at home. Amazingly, it had been nearly six years since Wilco’s last show in Paris proper and the sold-out crowd at the cozy La Cigale was clearly ready for its fix.

 

And while the setlists between the RAH and La Cigale gigs ended up overlapping quite a bit — of the 23 songs at both shows, by my count, 19 were the same (albeit in a slightly different order) — the vibe between the two shows could hardly have been more different. Of course the two rooms had something to do with that, going from the cavernous RAH with room for nearly 6,000 spectators to the clublike feel of La Cigale with its standing capacity of just under 1,400, but also the energy within both places. While I don’t dispute that the RAH audience was enthusiastic by British standards, the French crowd was a couple of steps shy of South American in terms of its reception for the band. Anyone who was at both shows could almost certainly feel a difference.

 

“It’s nice to be back in a proper venue,” Jeff said eight songs in, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. “You should’ve seen the dump we played last night. It was a thrill, actually, but I still feel more comfortable here, I have to tell you.”

 

Clubs like La Cigale are the kinds of places Jeff in which Jeff has been performing for more than half his life, so it’s kind of easy to understand why he would feel the way he did. And I honestly have no idea if that had anything to do with the few lyric flubs (one big one and a couple of minor ones) he had at the RAH, but tonight he nailed it in that aspect. I thought his vocals were especially strong on relatively recent material such as Meant To Be — for which, incidentally, I noticed that John had a little lyric cheat sheet at his feet — and Quiet Amplifier.

 

Perhaps the only downside to this show was how quickly it flew by. It seemed like Jeff and Co. were bound by a 10:30 p.m. curfew, even though Jeff didn’t say as much. Looking at the printed setlist, Theologians was listed as the penultimate song of the main set but got cut altogether, followed by an option for either I’m The Man Who Loves You or Spiders (Kidsmoke) — and I can only guess that the former was the choice for time reasons. Then the planned show-closing duo of Monday>Outtasite (Outta Mind), which would have been very fun to experience in that room, got scrapped in favor of the expected I Got You (At The End Of The Century).

 

Perhaps because of that time crunch, visits to Banter Corner were also fairly limited. Jeff did, however, take time out to thank the Wilcrew for its hard work — especially over what had been a long previous 48 hours — and then later, support act Deep Sea Diver. Other than that, he only offered his usual warning/joke about “getting pretty close to the end” and also encouraged the audience before Jesus, etc., to “sing along if you know the words. It won’t hurt you. It will do no harm.”

 

I have to give kudos to this audience, which not only took Jeff up on his invitation to sing along to Jesus, but also gave Nels a huge ovation following Impossible Germany and just seemed to be really into it from the get-go. It would have been pretty amazing to hear what the Spiders singalong on the “ba-ba bada ba-ba-bada-dada…” part would have been like inside La Cigale, but unfortunately that will have to be left to the imagination. It’s kind of ironic, to me anyway, that two recent audiences — Buenos Aires and Paris — that probably would have needed the least amount of cajoling to participate on that part ended up not getting the opportunity.

 

Anyway, it was kind of unfortunate that Paris “only” got 1 hour, 58 minutes of Wilco after a relatively long absence. Again, I have no insider knowledge about why the London and Paris shows weren’t “Evening With…” performances like the others on this European run. And no offense to Deep Sea Diver, which put on an entertaining half-hour set, but I would guess that the crowd at La Cigale (and the RAH, for that matter) would have relished another 30 minutes or so of Jeff and Co.

 

But for better or worse, these shows are now in the history books and it’s onto Spain for four more concerts before Wilco gets to take a short breather. I don’t know why, maybe because there’s an extra day off, but after Paris, it feels like a bit of an inflection point on this run. Maybe it’s because some of the regulars who have gone to one or more shows in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the UK and France are dropping off the tour and I know that a new batch of folks who are traveling will be in Spain, but I’ll be interested to see if it’s more of the same as we head back to the “Evening With…” format or if there will be a few surprises yet to come.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (as previously mentioned, Theologians was on the printed setlist as the penultimate song of the main set but wasn't played, while the final song of the main set was listed as “Man or Spiders”; and in the encore, the planned closing two-fer of Monday>Outtasite was replaced by the unlisted I Got You.)

 

Wishful Thinking

Company In My Back

Evicted

Handshake Drugs

Side With The Seeds

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Whole Love

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

Hummingbird

Either Way

Impossible Germany

Meant To Be

Via Chicago

Quiet Amplifier

Jesus, etc.

Box Full Of Letters

Annihilation

I'm The Man Who Loves You

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

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

[lost highway]

Genial! Merci!

[jackpunch]

Merde !

[Albert Tatlock]

(Jacques) Ta(ti), (Vol)ta(ire), or indeed (Gus)ta(ve Eiffel).

 

So, in summary, the Royal Albert Hall was close but no Cigale.

 

(I’m here all week . . . )

[bböp]

21 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

(Jacques) Ta(ti), (Vol)ta(ire), or indeed (Gus)ta(ve Eiffel).

 

So, in summary, the Royal Albert Hall was close but no Cigale.

 

(I’m here all week . . . )

I’ll just have some excellent beef ta(r)ta(re) if it’s all the same to you. Maybe even served by the late, great Joe E. Tata in his guise as the owner of the Peach Pit. If you know, you know…