Wilco — 20 August 2025, Ogden, UT (Ogden Amphitheater)

[bböp]

From an amphitheater near a beach on Long Island to the top of a mountain in Wyoming to a zoo in Seattle, I guess there’s just about no type of place that Wilco isn’t covering on this coast-to-coast “An August Evening With…” tour. And for tonight’s stop, we bring you to a park in the middle of a small city in Utah that the band has never played before in more than 30 years of touring.

 

To be fair, Ogden is only about a 45-minute drive north of Salt Lake City, where Jeff and his bandmates have played many times over the years and I’m sure that plenty of folks at tonight’s show had probably seen Wilco before. But in the grand scheme of things, the chance to catch a two-set performance by Wilco on a sunny, summer evening clearly was enough of a draw to get people to come out in spite of temperatures that — at least on my car’s dashboard — read as high as 102 degrees a couple of hours before showtime. Hey, as they say, it’s a dry heat!

 

The Ogden Amphitheater is a fairly intimate venue right in downtown Ogden with a wide lawn encircling the stage area. It was wide enough that Jeff even looked off to his far left and right at points during the show and waved to people on the extreme ends and wondered if their views were obstructed at all. Also of note, the VIP section covered the entire pit area across the front of the stage, with some standing room in front of a small section of seats, so that to be right up front and center, you had to have a VIP ticket. The good news was that once again the stage was quite low, so that those in the front had a particularly good view of the band, even if Jeff and Co. were set a bit further back than the previous night’s show.

 

I don’t want to put the mountaintop show in Jackson and this show in Ogden into too much of a vacuum comparison-wise just because they are the two most recent shows I’ve been able to attend. But it is interesting to note some of the differences between them. For instance, from a production standpoint, the Jackson show had just the bare minimum of a lighting rig — in fact, we heard that nearly all of the band’s equipment and gear had to be transported up the mountain via the same gondola that ferried the audience — while in Ogden the Wilcrew was able to go back to its regular lighting setup with standing towers of lights of different circumferences. In addition, the band members changed clothes between sets in Jackson (with Jeff coming back out for Set 2 in a somewhat garishly colored plaid shirt that I don’t recall him wearing on stage before), while they didn’t change at all in Ogden. But in Ogden, we did get the amusing bit where the band returned for the second set to the unmistakable tones of John Williams’ classic theme from Jaws.

 

Who can say why any of this stuff happens or doesn’t happen from night to night? I guess the band and the Wilcrew have to keep things fresh for themselves during a pretty grueling month on the road. Similarly, why does a relatively deep cut like Country Disappeared suddenly come out when the band has been sticking to a fairly consistent setlist for this tour (the order might get shifted around a bit, but the songs played have been mostly the same)? Yet it was a delight to hear the melancholic vibes of that tune, which was certainly a (the?) highlight of this Ogden show, even if only yours truly realized it in the moment.

 

“We haven’t played that one in a while,” Jeff said of Country Disappeared, which made its 2025 debut and was performed for the first time by the full band since one of the St. Paul “Winterlude On The Road” shows last December. “It’s been fun to get to do this (two-set format), to get to stretch out and listen to each other more than we usually get to. Both sets are different songs, just so you know. No extra charge.”

 

Jeff had some other pretty funny visits to Banter Corner during this show, none more so than the zinger he came up with when someone in the crowd yelled out late in the first set, “Marry me, Wilco!” Jeff heard it, and fired back, “Did you say marry you? This might be the only state where that’s possible. We’re all married, thank you.” A couple of songs into Set 2, Jeff also had an amusing bit about that blazing orb in the sky finally relenting a bit. “We’re back,” Jeff said. “Everyone still having a good time? The sun went down like we talked about. That's one of my favorite things about the sun is it goes away.” That comment came on the heels of Jeff’s first audience check-in during the first set. “Ogden! It’s so good to be here,” Jeff exclaimed. “Have we ever been here? No? That’s what I thought. I don’t usually know where I’ve been, but I knew that.”

 

I must also mention, by way of discussing the show in Jackson the previous night, that it seemed like Jeff still had the mass exodus at the end of that show on his mind. Right before the band left the stage for the set break, he said, “Hopefully you’ll all be here when we get back.” Normally I wouldn’t ascribe that comment to anything out of the ordinary, but Jeff ‘s last bit of banter for the night clearly spelled out what he was thinking. “Last night we played on a mountain and everybody left early to go catch a gon-DOE-la,” Jeff said during the encore, pronouncing the last word in a goofy way. “This is much nicer to have everybody still around. We always love coming here (to Utah), even though we’ve never actually been here (to Ogden).”

 

In fairness, I will say that those who stayed for the duration in Jackson seemed to be way more enthusiastic than much of the crowd in Ogden. Perhaps that’s what you get when you put the VIP section across the entire front of the stage. There was a VIP section in Jackson as well — and it was actually pretty massive — but it was mostly off to the side with only a tiny part adjacent to the front of the stage. A small distinction, to be sure, but it definitely seemed to make a difference in terms of the crowd energy. Because of the slight curvature of the rail in Ogden, I was able to look down the line at the front row during I Got You (At The End Of The Century), for example, and hardly anyone seemed very into it. That could just be my misperception, or the fact that different people enjoy shows in different ways, but I just couldn’t help thinking that if I was up there playing one of my rocking-est songs and people were just kind standing there staring back at me without much outward enthusiasm, it would kind of bum me out.

 

Anyway, here was the complete setlist as played in Ogden (didn't get to carefully peruse the printed setlist(s), so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Set 1

Story To Tell

Handshake Drugs

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

If I Ever Was A Child

Cruel Country

Forget The Flowers

Country Disappeared

Evicted

Spiders (Kidsmoke) (acoustic arrangement)

Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull

I'm Always In Love (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic)

Hesitating Beauty

Hummingbird

It's Just That Simple

Via Chicago

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

 

Set 2

The Late Greats

You Are My Face

Theologians

Side With The Seeds

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

Box Full Of Letters

Annihilation

Either Way

Impossible Germany

Hate It Here

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

I'm The Man Who Loves You

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

Walken

I Got You (At The End Of The Century)

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

[Albert Tatlock]

Ta. Stan Ogden lived just down the road from Albert Tatlock, and Hilda Ogden was the greatest soap character ever. Just saying.

 

 

[nalafej]

19 hours ago, bböp said:

I don’t want to put the mountaintop show in Jackson and this show in Ogden into too much of a vacuum comparison-wise just because they are the two most recent shows I’ve been able to attend. But it is interesting to note some of the differences between them. For instance, from a production standpoint, the Jackson show had just the bare minimum of a lighting rig — in fact, we heard that nearly all of the band’s equipment and gear had to be transported up the mountain via the same gondola that ferried the audience — while in Ogden the Wilcrew was able to go back to its regular lighting setup with standing towers of lights of different circumferences. In addition, the band members changed clothes between sets in Jackson (with Jeff coming back out for Set 2 in a somewhat garishly colored plaid shirt that I don’t recall him wearing on stage before), while they didn’t change at all in Ogden. But in Ogden, we did get the amusing bit where the band returned for the second set to the unmistakable tones of John Williams’ classic theme from Jaws.

 

“Last night we played on a mountain and everybody left early to go catch a gon-DOE-la,” Jeff said during the encore, pronouncing the last word in a goofy way. “This is much nicer to have everybody still around. We always love coming here (to Utah), even though we’ve never actually been here (to Ogden).”

 

In fairness, I will say that those who stayed for the duration in Jackson seemed to be way more enthusiastic than much of the crowd in Ogden. 

 

I don't care what they say bbop, you know your audience! Thanks for the direct comparisons to the Wylico show. Looks like another fun night on tour despite the VIPs.