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Jeff Tweedy (Band) — 9 November 2025, Tulsa, OK (Cain's Ballroom)


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Complete setlist, as played:

Western Clear Skies

Betrayed

One Tiny Flower

Caught Up In The Past

Parking Lot

Forever Never Ends

This Is How It Ends

Low Key

World Away

KC Rain (No Wonder)

Having Been Is No Way To Be

Mirror

Stray Cats In Spain

Out In The Dark

Ain’t It A Shame

Flowering

New Orleans

Diamond Light Pt. 1

No One’s Moving On

Feel Free

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter

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

Twilight Override

Family Ghost

Wish I Had Not Said That [J.J. Cale]

Do Re Mi [Woody Guthrie]

Enough

 

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

 

“Special” song(s): Obviously with Oklahoma, there are so many possibilities — among the ones that came to my mind right away were Okie From Muskogee by Merle Haggard and Oklahoma, U.S.A. by The Kinks, not to mention something by the Flaming Lips. But as usual, Jeff and Co. were not nearly that obvious, opting for a perhaps lesser-known tune by the native Tulsan singer-songwriter J.J. Cale, Wish I Had Not Said That, on which Liam Kazar took the lead vocals. Then came maybe a bit more of an expected choice, at least in terms of the artist, with Jeff himself singing lead on Woody Guthrie’s classic tune Do Re Mi.

 

Support report: Liam, playing solo acoustic. I believe this was his first performance since his new record Pilot Light officially came out two days prior, and tonight he did several of the songs he has been playing from that record on this tour, including early singles Day Off and Didn’t I. The full set was: Pilot Light/The Word The War/I’ve Been Where You Are/Holiday/Shoes Too Tight/Day Off/Didn’t I.

 

Venue vibes: Cain’s, of course, is always a fun place to see a show. The converted honky tonk/dance hall with a mostly standing room capacity of 1,800 was far from sold out, I think, but there was still a decent crowd. Jeff mentioned always visiting the now-preserved section of drywall from the green room in which the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious once punched a hole after the band played Cain’s in 1978 during their only North American tour. One noteworthy bit about this show was the lack of a barricade separating the audience from the stage, which, after consulting with some local friends who’ve gone to a number of shows there, is apparently unusual.

 

Bits of tid, including Banter Corner:

  • Just after Jeff gave his usual spiel about how there were a few quieter songs in the set and how he felt like he should give audiences a heads up — like David Lee Roth would…just kidding — and the band started playing Stray Cats In Spain, a woman right at the front apparently fainted and hit the ground with a sickening thud. When it became evident that someone was down, the band stopped playing and everything came to a halt while security and medical personnel attended to the woman. The good news was she appeared to regain at least some consciousness before they helped her up and escorted her to get checked out further, but it was of course a scary moment (sadly, one that's not all that uncommon these days). Somehow Jeff and Co. picked up exactly where they had left off and afterward Jeff said, in part to lighten the mood, “That might be my favorite version of that we’ve ever done. We’re gonna add that interlude every time.”
  • Another lady at the front threatened to derail the show after initially making a cool request — more on that in a second — when she had several cringey exchanges with Jeff in which she repeatedly professed her love for him and also that she wanted to follow him or something like that. Once when she said, “I love you, Jeff,” he looked around awkwardly and zipped his jacket up to his neck as an expression of self-protection. After the “following” comment, Jeff joked that he knew he was “dressed like a cult leader” (he was wearing a cream colored jacket and matching chinos) but that he wasn’t that kind of figure. Unfortunately, in the shuffling of the crowd after the woman fainted, the crazy lady wound up sidling in right next to me for most of the remainder of the show and even tried to give me an unwelcome hug at one point. She also started in on Spencer, too, saying she loved him and gesturing in his direction, though he did well to ignore her. I’m sure I’m not doing the best job of conveying this whole extended scene, but it added a definite tension to the proceedings up front until she thankfully left halfway through the encore.
  • The thing about this cringey lady was that she apparently was a big fan of the Sukierae album because she audibly reacted whenever a song from that record got played. In fact, her whole interaction with Jeff got started when she blurted out “Understood!” which Jeff somehow correctly interpreted as a request for the song Please Don’t Let Me Be So Understood. The Tweedy band of that era played it pretty regularly while touring that record, but it hasn’t been performed in more than nine years. Still, Jeff started to play the riff and Spencer picked up immediately with the drum beat and they gave it a good shot for 10 seconds or so before Jeff admitted, “I don’t think we know that one.” He added, jokingly, “Let’s nip this in the bud. This isn’t ‘Stump The Band,’” but also said he appreciated that someone seemed to know the name of a song on one of the Tweedy (band) records.
  • Was it just me or did the band kind of do a little different ending to World Away by just keeping it instrumental to finish out the song instead of the vocal coming back in at the end? I’d have to hear it again, but I wondered if that was intentional.
  • Speaking of endings, Jeff had an amusing little flub at the end of Forever Never Ends when he sang the “In a red cummerbund” line from the first verse again instead of the correct “In the middle of a nightmare.” He exchanged a sheepish look with Sima and then, after the song had ended, re-sang the ending again for his own edification, saying, “That’s how that goes.”
  • Of the blueish(?), crescent-shaped guitar he uses on Flowering, Jeff quipped, “This thing has more fans than I do.”
  • In the encore Jeff explained the “special song” to the audience, but said that lately he and his bandmates had actually been doing two unique songs because they couldn’t decide between the ones they had chosen. And that was once again the case tonight. “Don’t get too excited,” Jeff warned the crowd. “We just learned these (songs) this afternoon.”
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5 hours ago, bböp said:

lack of a barricade

Well it’s obvious no one is going to mess with you so there won’t be any funny business. Plus there’s ol’ Sima ‘Slugger‘ Cunningham of course as the second line of defence.

 

A veritable blizzard of tid today.

 

Feel free

To shout a whiny strained ‘ta’

To get heard above all those Okies braying ‘yee-ha!’

Feel free

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 (sadly, one that's not all that uncommon these days).

 

There was a guy at the Louisville show who had succumbed to a folding chair, paralyzed from the top of his cranium down despite attempts by his two companions to lift him. 

 

 

Perhaps Jeff should start issuing a pre-show P.S.A.

 

"folks, if you eat a gummy and it hasn't kicked in yet....maybe give it another 15 minutes before doubling up(or down)."

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