Golden Smog — 17 January 2026, Riviera Maya, Mexico (Hard Rock Hotel) [Sky Blue Sky Festival; Day 3 of 4]

[bböp]

I guess I never really wrote about the three Golden Smog shows in Jersey City, N.J., New York and Chicago last month, in part because I think Via Chicago was having one of its recent outages at the time and also admittedly due to my own pre-holiday slacking. But suffice it to say I felt fortunate to be able to attend all three because a) I got to see a couple of them with some of my closest musical friends and b) they took place in some of my favorite venues anywhere.

 

So it was a somewhat unexpected — or more accurately, hoped-for — treat to get another opportunity to see the rarely performing outfit at this fourth edition of the Sky Blue Sky Festival. Although Gary Louris’ Jayhawks were always part of the announced lineup for the event and obviously Jeff would be present, Golden Smog was only officially added nine days before SBS was set to begin. Moreover, the announcement naming all of the members who would be in attendance came with an intriguing twist — namely, “mystery drummer(s),” which was sort of apropos in a Spinal Tap-sort of way for this supergroup (former Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman had been the drummer for the three shows in December, and has played with Golden Smog since 2024).

 

Thus the, uh, stage was set for the group’s afternoon show on the so-called Beach Stage at the Hard Rock Hotel, which faces a small manmade beach and adjacent lagoon in which much of the audience can watch while sitting or lying on a beach towel, floating on some sort of implement or just standing with feet in the water. After a quick changeover following the Jayhawks’ own 70-minute set, all of a sudden the five primary Smog members (Jeff, Gary, Kraig Johnson, Dan Murphy and Marc Perlman) and veteran drummer Greg Wieczorek a.k.a. G-Wiz (who is the longtime drummer for The Autumn Defense and has also played with Norah Jones and Valerie June, among others) were taking the stage and launching into the familiar opening chords of Looking Forward To Seeing You.

 

What ensued, which Susie Tweedy livestreamed on her stuffinourhouse Instagram account so you can see for yourself, was a slightly condensed version of the three shows in December. The eagerly anticipated set was perhaps the first time much of the audience had gotten to see the group live since it has seldom performed live outside of the Twin Cities, Chicago and the New York area since its heyday in the mid-to-late 1990s. So the energy was terrific from the start and only built toward a joyous singalong denouement (more about that later).

 

It was the start of a busier-than-usual day for both Gary, who played the aforementioned Jayhawks set immediately preceding the Smog show, and Jeff, who had his own set to play with Wilco later that evening. The two joked about that double duty a bit later in the set when the rest of the band left the stage and only they remained for a pair of acoustic tunes, Long Time Ago and Radio King. This was something Gary and Jeff did to begin the encore at those shows in December, but this time the acoustic duets came about two thirds of the way through the show. “Gary and I are gonna sing a couple of songs together and let everybody else take a break; they’re so tired,” Jeff said with a slight smirk. Gary responded, “I’m tired, but I’m gonna soldier through.” Quipped Jeff: “Luckily I don’t have anything else to do today.”

 

Anyway, about those “mystery drummer(s)” — and I’m not counting G-Wiz here only because he was obviously the primary drummer for the majority of the set (and, incidentally, did a bang-up job) — we got the first one five songs in when MJ Lenderman stepped out for the first of several covers that Golden Smog recorded and plays regularly: the Faces’ Glad and Sorry. Jeff joked beforehand that “this record came out before he was born,” which I guess is not surprising about Down By The Old Mainstream (1995) but if we’re talking about the original record the song appeared on, Ooh La La (1973), then that one came out before I was even born. Anyway, I won’t say the band completely nailed the conclusion, but I don’t think too many people noticed or cared. “We didn’t make it to the ending at sound check, so it wasn’t (Lenderman’s) fault,” Jeff said afterward. “It was our fault.”

 

After a couple more covers that are a regular part of the Smog repertoire, including David Bowie’s Starman (which Murphy dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, saying “It’s really nice to be here; thanks for the invite. … (It’s) a very good time to be out of Minneapolis, but this song goes out to them.”), it was time for the other mystery drummer who really wasn’t all that much of a mystery at all if you think about it. Of course you figured Spencer Tweedy would play on at least one of his dad’s songs and that came true on Pecan Pie, with Jeff noting that the first Golden Smog tour apparently featured a laminate that had a non-altered picture of Spencer as a baby giving the middle finger. “He’s been flipping us off since he was born,” Jeff quipped. “It’s in his nature.” Spencer also later played on I Can’t Keep From Talking, which Jeff pointed out was “one of the first songs Spencer ever learned on guitar, so he’s gonna play drums on this.”

 

Though he didn’t drum on the final two songs of the 71-minute set, Spencer was nevertheless on stage. First he played a bit of tambourine beside G-Wiz on Neil Young’s Revolution Blues, another Smog staple, and then was joined by his brother Sammy on backing vocals for the closing number, Until You Came Along. At one point, Jeff, Sammy and Spencer all shared one microphone to sing and it was a very sweet image (which I’m sure multiple people captured). At the end, as he did at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, Jeff led one added final pass through the chorus as a sort of mass singalong and I can’t imagine too many people walking away from that not feeling a little pep in their proverbial step. Some songs, in my opinion, were just meant to be sung along with and that’s one of them, whether as tipsy patrons in a barroom somewhere or as sun worshippers on an artificial beach on the Yucatan Peninsula.

 

“I’d like to thank Golden Smog for coming,” Jeff said just before starting Until You Came Along, although more than half of the group was already slated to be at the festival. “They got a last-minute call. They slid down the fire pole, climbed up the ladder and put out the fire.” A supergroup made up of some old friends playing the Superman role and saving the day? Yeah, I can get behind that.

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played (all songs with Greg Wieczorek on drums, unless noted):

 

1. Looking Forward To Seeing You

2. Lost Love

3. To Call My Own

4. V (with Pat Sansone on keyboard)

5. Glad and Sorry [The Faces] (with MJ Lenderman on drums)

6. Ill Fated

7. Starman [David Bowie]

8. He’s A Dick

9. Won’t Be Coming Home

10. Yesterday Cried

11. Strangers [The Kinks]

12. Pecan Pie (with Spencer Tweedy on drums)

13. Long Time Ago (Jeff Tweedy and Gary Louris only)

14. Radio King (Jeff Tweedy and Gary Louris only)

15. I Can’t Keep From Talking (with Spencer Tweedy on drums)

16. Revolution Blues [Neil Young] (with Spencer Tweedy on tambourine)

17. Until You Came Along (with Spencer and Sammy Tweedy on backing vocals)

[Albert Tatlock]

Yuca(ta)n