Jeff Tweedy (Band) — 8 October 2025, Three Oaks, MI (Acorn Theater)

[bböp]

Because I’ve been such a laggard in keeping up with these first shows of the Twilight Override era — in the interest of transparency, I’m writing this three full weeks after the first “real” (i.e., headlining) gig of the tour — and because I haven’t been able to attend as many of them as I usually do, I’m changing up my recap format a bit and trying something new.

Or actually old. If you came of age in or are a consumer of old-fashioned newspaper journalism as I did and am, you will probably recognize a version of the tried-and-true “notes column” in what follows. I think this format will be a good way to report most of the pertinent details of these TO shows (inasmuch as anyone on here even cares anymore) because the shows have kind of settled into a certain formula of sorts as the tour has gone on. And moving forward, since I regretfully won’t be able to get to many of the shows in person over the next couple of weeks, this will hopefully be an effective way to organize the information gathered from various sources both first- and second-hand.

So without further ado, let’s try and get this train back on the tracks (at least until the site goes down again…):

Complete setlist, as played:

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Parking Lot

Forever Never Ends

Love Is The King

Mirror

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Betrayed

Out In The Dark

Better Song

New Orleans

Low Key

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

Amar Bharati

Stray Cats In Spain

World Away

Cry Baby Cry

Gwendolyn

This Is How It Ends

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

Twilight Override

Diamond Light Pt.1

You Are Not Alone

Enough

Number of Twilight Override songs played (out of 30): 18.

“Special” song: None. In future shows, as Jeff would announce, he and his bandmates would decide to play one “special” song at each show that they wouldn’t play anywhere else. I think it’s a great idea and I look forward to seeing what songs get played moving forward, but for this first night of the run, unfortunately, it appears that they had not yet decided to make this part of the show.

Support report: Sima Cunningham, playing solo electric. As would also come to be the case at future shows, Sima would invite Macie Stewart to join her for the final song of her set, the Finom cut As You Are.

Venue vibes: A sold-out intimate theater with both reserved and general admission seating (the reserved seats, including most of those in the center front section closest to the stage, seemed to be assigned to theater members/donors). According to the theater’s Web site, the capacity is 300 seats.

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

•         The stage alignment showed that Jeff and Co. hadn’t completely figured out what they wanted to do yet, or what would work best. For this first gig, Sammy’s table setup with his synth was situated at stage left, while Sima and Macie were next to each other to Jeff’s right and Liam was all the way at far stage right. This stage plot would change for future shows, putting the rhythm section of Spencer and Sima closer to each other to Jeff’s left and shifting Sammy from stage left to stage right.
•       Parking Lot was another TO song that made its live debut here, and I think this was maybe the one that a lot of people had been most looking forward to seeing live. It's weird seeing Jeff do essentially a spoken word piece, but I thought the song blended into the set quite well. I don't know if it reminds anyone else of Cassandra Jenkins' meditative track Hard Drive, but it kind of does for me.
•         Diamond Light Pt. 1 was a more-than-pleasant surprise when it showed up in the encore. It had been more than eight years since it had last been played, dating back to Solid Sound 5 in 2017 when Darin Gray was still holding down the bass slot in the Tweedy band.
•         It remains to be seen just how deep a cut Better Song will end up being, but this show has been the only one so far (through 27 October) in which that Twilight Override tune has been played.
•         Jeff didn’t make a lot of noteworthy visits to Banter Corner, but just before the end of the show he quipped, “We’re driving to Canada tonight. We’ll see if we come back.” Earlier in the set, after Mirror, he remarked how it was the first time the band had played that song in front of people. “You’re in for a bunch of firsts tonight, I think,” he said. Of course, the sextet immediately followed that up with two songs — KC Rain (No Wonder) and Betrayed — it had performed publicly before, causing Jeff to note after the latter, “Sorry to say we (have) played that in front of an audience. I apologize.” One other funny remark came in the second half of the set when Jeff noticed that a particular pocket of the audience seemed especially enthusiastic. “The people over there seem very excited,” Jeff said, gesturing over to his left. “That’s where the bar is, isn’t it?”

[Albert Tatlock]

Feel free

To politely thank Bbop with a 'Ta'

Since I was well brought up by my Ma

Feel Free

 

When I first heard Parking Lot, my very first thought after one sentence was along the lines of 'Thank God it's JT's old voice back rather than whispering Jeff'. Still a bit too much whispering around for me, but a definite improvement in the percentages on this release. Also, I hope that Sammy is feeling at home now. Is it just me - but I was always finding his shyness/awkwardness on stage quite distracting (only from video that I have seen). I'm not trying to be mean because I would not be exactly a natural performed either (and obviously aren't) but I hope he is relaxed and enjoying things. Or maybe he always was and it's just my perception. 

 

5 hours ago, bböp said:

“Special” song

I was pleased to hear about this on your behalf - must be nice to have something different to look forward to each night. That We Are Family cover was introduced in the video as it being one of the series of individual 'songs with some connection to the place where they are playing'. Not sure how that's going to be possible all the time (Hattiesburg? wherever that is) and I saw online Cortez the Killer in New York I think (which didn't smack of any local connection to me but I am not a Neil Young fan so maybe there is something tenuous), but I was idly pondering if the London shows (if they are full band after all) would get a proper connection to London or some vague British one in the way that all Americans lump us all together  Suppose there would always be Waterloo Sunset which JT knows and the girls are there for the higher pitched backing vocals. Anyway, that's more than enough from me, but it's good to have you back.