Wilco — 25 August 2025, Seattle, WA (Woodland Park Zoo) [ZooTunes; Night 2 of 2]

[bböp]

Birthdays…who needs ‘em? Amirite? I write this as someone whose own birthday is rapidly approaching, but even if Jeff hadn’t already expressed his indifference toward his birthday on his most recent Substack post, I think he would probably be inclined to agree after he spent his 58th working with Wilco on the second night of a two-night stand at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

 

After taking the stage to a front row of people wearing party hats, blowing noisemakers and holding up letters spelling out “Happy Birthday, Jeff” — I’m not even going to get into the clueless local television news personality who appeared on stage before that and apparently had no clue who the birthday-celebrating “Jeff” was — Jeff sheepishly thanked the audience and said all of the pomp and circumstance was “very sweet” before leading his bandmates into the, uh, not-very-celebratory Story To Tell. Two songs later, after the acoustic version of Art Of Almost, Jeff ran into his first speedbump of the night in the form of an awkward moment with a heckler. Near the front at stage left, a woman very audibly said, “That was terrible.” Trying to confirm that he had heard the comment correctly, Jeff replied, “That was terrible? OK, uh, that’s not the kind of encouragement we want.” That comment prompted cheering from other parts of the audience, which gave Jeff the confidence to reply to the woman, with a slight smirk, “It seems like people disagree with you.”

 

It wouldn’t be the last indignity Jeff would have to endure during his birthday show, but he attempted to head off any potential grumbling about repeated songs from the previous night by telling the crowd that he knew many people had also attended Night 1 but that these were the songs he and his bandmates were enjoying playing right now and joked that “you’re gonna enjoy them again.” But he did add that there would also be enough different numbers from the previous night’s show “to make everybody happy and not just the freaks.”

 

Freak? Moi? Well, I can certainly say that I, for one, was delighted by the next song choice, Someday Soon, which Jeff introduced by saying, “We haven’t played this in a while. Let’s see how this goes…” For the record, it had only been a few years since the last performance of Someday Soon — at the last Sky Blue Sky Festival in 2023 — but it had apparently been long enough that its surprise coda even amusingly tripped up some of the Wilcrew, who were already starting to bring out guitars for the next song. “We fooled our own techs,” Jeff quipped. “It’s called a fake ending, Andy.”

 

Just one song later we got a real rarity in the form of Pick Up The Change. Fortunately I had already done a quick search to find out just how long it had been since the band played one of my favorite A.M. cuts because afterward Jeff remarked that it had been a while for that one, too, and added that your humble correspondent could probably tell you exactly how long. “Nine years,” I immediately replied, and it had indeed been just shy of that. Amazingly, the full band hadn’t performed the song since a three-night run at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles in September 2016. If Jeff was surprised by that factoid, however, he didn’t show it, replying, “Nine years? It’s been one day since we played this one,” before immediately going into the acoustic version of Spiders (Kidsmoke).

 

Only Jeff can say if it took his birthday, consecutive shows in the same city or just pure whimsy to shake up the setlist with a couple of rarities (though, interestingly, we didn’t get Bull Black Nova, which had been soundchecked and on the printed setlist for Night 1 but ultimately wasn’t played either night). Someday Soon and Pick Up The Change would be the biggest surprises of the night, but true to Jeff’s word, we also got a number of other changes. By my count, there were 11 songs in all played on Night 2 that weren’t on Night 1 — so basically one-third of the “Evening With…” show’s 33 or 34 songs got swapped out.

 

Even if it hadn’t been Jeff’s birthday, though, it would have been a memorable night — and not always in a good way. The first weird moment came in Set 1 when all of a sudden, after Spiders, a drumstick mysteriously went flying over the front of the stage and into the pit between the stage and the front row. Apparently Glenn lost control while reaching for it out of his stickbag, as he attempted to explain to some of his bandmates. Meanwhile, the wayward stick landed at the feet of a lady right in front of Jeff, who proceeded to get into a conversation with her after he saw her pick up the stick with her foot. Apparently the drumstick was a “very special” one the band couldn’t just let the lady have, so drum tech Ashwin came down into the pit to retrieve it and promised her he would bring down some sticks that she could have a little later (which he did). I could get into more of the back and forth between her and Jeff, but basically it involved him calling her ma’am, which she bristled at — this was kind of a sassy front row — but it eventually ended on a joke about Jeff’s birthday as just about everything seemed to tonight.

 

Even worse for Jeff was not one, but two, separate insect issues during the show. The first came out midway through Set 2 when Jeff shared before Sunken Treasure why he had apparently been touching his nose more often than usual during the show. “I just want to point out that I didn’t have birthday cocaine,” he joked. “That was a long time ago, and it’s not good for me. No, it’s because a small bug has taken up residence (in my nose). There’s a bug living in my left nostril.” One song later, after Either Way, things got even worse when Jeff apparently got stung by a bee on the back of his neck. He suddenly grabbed at his collar and then bent over briefly as his guitar tech came out to inspect the sting, which a friend of mine who works at the zoo said was probably a yellowjacket. “Happy birthday to me,” an exasperated Jeff said. “Guess we’re gonna find out if I’m allergic.” After Nels’ usual brilliance on Impossible Germany, Jeff qupped, in a bit of gallows humor, “I could play like that if I wasn’t getting stung by bees.” Then he added, before Jesus, etc., “Sing along, please. Such a great frontman.”

 

Poor guy. Jeff soldiered on for the rest of the show, which was kind of a blur if I'm being honest. The band blitzed through A Shot In The Arm to close out Set 2, which might have been the granting of a request by someone in the front row who had been holding up a sign for that song. But it was hardly Jeff’s best performance of it as he flubbed lyrics a couple times — to be fair, the band hadn’t played it at all on this August tour — and Jeff mouthed an apology to the requester for the errors as he walked off stage.

 

The band did return for a quick encore, even with the zoo’s tight 9 p.m. curfew looming, and even went back to U.S. Blues as the show closer for the second night in a row. By that point, things had kind of gotten a bit loose, shall we say, as Glenn and Pat couldn’t get on the same page to start the song and Jeff had to intercede to get them back together. Despite all of the shenanigans, Jeff still pronounced these Seattle shows as “two of my favorite shows of all-time” and thanked what he called a sweet crowd for coming out for them. “Happy birthday, everybody,” Jeff declared as he walked off stage and disappeared into the night (or more likely, into the comfort of the tour bus parked just off stage for a little birthday bee balm).

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for Night 2 (didn't see a printed setlist(s), so can't say if there were any changes/omissions):

 

Set 1

Story To Tell

Handshake Drugs

Art Of Almost (acoustic arrangement)

Company In My Back

If I Ever Was A Child

Cruel Country

Someday Soon

Evicted

Pick Up The Change

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

Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

It's Just That Simple

California Stars

Falling Apart (Right Now)

 

Set 2

You Are My Face

Theologians

Side With The Seeds

Whole Love

Box Full Of Letters

Annihilation

Random Name Generator

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

Either Way

Impossible Germany

Jesus, etc.

Heavy Metal Drummer

A Shot In The Arm

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

Monday>

Outtasite (Outta Mind)

U.S. Blues [Grateful Dead]

[sonnyfeeling]

So, about that "heckler"...

We were sitting with her for most of the night, and the hilarious part is it was HER BIRTHDAY TOO. She had a "Happy Birthday Jeff" sign, with "Spiders" on the other side.

I spoke with her at the set break and she said the whole "terrible" comment was a misunderstanding. "You know how you go to a great restaurant and after you have completely cleaned your plate the waiter comes over and asks how it was and you say, IRONICALLY, 'It was terrible'?" That's the joke she was going for, but it did not land with Jeff, at least not right away.

Anyway, lovely fan and a big misunderstanding. And she was supposed to be there with some friends but they all bailed at the last minute so she was alone on her birthday and thus maybe had just as miserable a celebration as Jeff.

Otherwise, though, it was a great show. (And yes, I had a hat and a noisemaker.)

[Albert Tatlock]

How long was the queue for Pat at the petting corner?

 

Ta

[50footqueenie]

I CANNOT BELIEVE NO-ONE ASKED IF HE DIDN'T HAVE A MUZZLE FOR THAT BEE FFS!

[bböp]

4 hours ago, 50footqueenie said:

I CANNOT BELIEVE NO-ONE ASKED IF HE DIDN'T HAVE A MUZZLE FOR THAT BEE FFS!

 

SOMEONE DID MENTION IT, NOT IN THAT WAY EXACTLY BUT STILL. HE GOT THE HUMOUR I THINK, BUT STILL WAS MOST LIKELY NOT IN THE JOKIEST OF MOODS. FFS! 

 

 

18 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

How long was the queue for Pat at the petting corner?

 

Ta

  

Pat and the Penguins. Good doo-wop group, or so I hear.

 

(Sea)-Ta(c) Airport.