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

[bböp]

Maybe it was the fact that I had literally just seen the band perform a few hours earlier, but I couldn’t help but think of Golden Smog at the end of Wilco’s second of three sets at this year’s Sky Blue Sky Festival. One of my all-time favorites of Jeff’s lyrics comes from his song I Can’t Keep From Talking — namely, the part that goes “I know all the words/To every song/And I don’t really care/That tonight you sang one wrong” — which I think just gets to the heart of what it means to be a fan.

 

It’s one thing to forgive or shrug off a mis-sung word, though; it’s another to skip an entire verse (or at least part of a verse). Because another one of my favorite Jeff lines also happens to be from Kicking Television, and when the time came to sing along to “Stop shopping, even/Stop buying things” during Wilco’s run through that glorious number in tonight’s encore, well, let’s just say I was left hanging. I don’t know what happened exactly, but Jeff somehow just omitted that part of the song (and just to make sure I didn’t just somehow miss it, I confirmed it with at least two other people afterward). But don’t cry for me, uh, Riviera Maya. It always brings me plenty of joy to hear Kicking TV in any form, but as part of an encore that also included — and concluded — with Just A Kid and Let’s Not Get Carried Away, harkening back to the ending of the “deep cuts” set at the last Solid Sound Festival? Pure elation.

 

I don’t know how many people in attendance truly shared that elation with a set that felt like it was geared toward real Wilco “heads,” of which you would think there would be many at a Wilco-centric event such as SBS. Of course there were plenty of people in attendance who have become familiar faces at shows here, there and everywhere, but also more than a few folks who didn’t seem to be familiar with some of the more obscure — or not even that obscure — material (and I’m not even going to mention being aware of little nuances like the “big riff” ending in Theologians, which by the way did happen — more or less — or that the band played the capital C-version of Camera). That’s just my sense of it, but again, in talking to some other people, I don’t think I’m entirely off with that assessment.

 

Jeff alluded to it when dusting off Wilco (The Album) cut Sonny Feeling. “This is one we haven’t played very much,” he said, introducing the song. “Some people get excited at that, some don’t. That’s my observation.” Afterward, he surveyed the audience: “What do you think, should we play it more often?” When he got back some affirmative responses, he replied, almost teasingly, “I don’t believe you.” (Incidentally, I looked it up and this was just the fourth time the full band has played Sonny Feeling in the last 15-plus years. Is that possible?)

 

The 1-hour, 45-minute set kicked off with another number, You Satellite, that hasn’t been performed live — though often requested by some noted requesters, ahem — much over the past decade or so. I don’t know if the timing was purely coincidental, but Jeff had just shared an acoustic version on his most recent Starship Casual post on Substack. Or perhaps opening with You Satellite was inspired by Yo La Tengo performing immediately before Wilco on the SBS main stage. Either way, the version the band played tonight more closely resembled the recorded one, which Jeff described on his Substack as having “kind of a loose structure that I sang some poetry over while we played loud guitars, and it’s pretty improvised.” The live version Jeff and his bandmates manifested tonight was definitely YLT-esque in a way, which is never a bad thing.

 

At any rate, when four of the first five songs of a set are from Star Wars — especially these days — you know it’s not going to be an ordinary Wilco show. Those four Star Wars tunes (You Satellite, Random Name Generator, Cold Slope and King Of You) were sandwiched around the almost-jazzy rearrangement of Everyone Hides that the band has been playing over the past couple of years, which also included Jeff’s first noteworthy lyric flub of the night when he stumbled through the third verse that begins with “If you’re selling yourself on a vision…” I think Jeff could be forgiven for that one, though, since the band lost a bit of momentum when it paused the song after there was a brief medical situation in the crowd.

 

All things considered, given that he had just played a full set of Golden Smog songs earlier in the day and probably didn’t have time to get in his usual pre-show nap, Jeff did pretty well from a lyric-singing standpoint. Then again, he also seemed to be especially encouraging of crowd participation — specifically singing along — on songs such as Jesus, etc., Either Way, Hummingbird and even Spiders (Kidsmoke), on which Jeff got the crowd ba-ba-ba-ing to his apparent satisfaction. “I feel like singing (collectively) is one of the greatest things about being on Planet Earth,” Jeff said before Jesus. “If you know the words, let’s do that thing that connects us together.” I’ll side with you if you side with me, indeed (to quote from Side With The Seeds, which also got played tonight…for what it’s worth).

 

In perhaps a bit of a surprise, there were once again no guest appearances for the second consecutive show. I mean, collaborations don’t always happen even when they might seem obvious and, certainly, I imagine that part of the appeal of coming to an event like SBS for many musicians is to get a few days of relaxation when they’re not playing their own material. But given how many Wilco pals were around, you thought there would be at least a cameo or two. Instead, the most significant collaboration of the day probably was Spencer Tweedy sitting in on auxiliary percussion for nearly all of Yo La Tengo’s set (not to be outdone in the imaginary competition to be the most omnipresent performer at this year’s SBS, MJ Lenderman also joined YLT for a couple of tunes). For his part, Spencer had played with YLT for its entire set when he, Sammy and Jeff (as The Raccoonists) had opened one of YLT’s annual Hanukkah shows in New York last month. However, there would be no reunion of the full Yo La Tweedy band in Mexico.

 

Not that the lack of any special guests detracted from this Wilco show, but also maybe the 2022 edition of SBS — which featured numerous sit-ins by that year’s performers, including Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy, Kurt Vile, Stephen Malkmus, Neal Francis and Britt Daniel of Spoon, not to mention Mavis Staples — was more of an exception rather than a rule. It remains to be seen whether there will be any collabs on the final night of SBS ’26, but given that we didn’t know if there even would be another SBS after the previous one, that Wilco didn’t repeat a song from its first set of the fest (which seems to just kind of be assumed now) and we got a full-on drum solo by Glenn to close out tonight, well, who could really kvetch about any of this?

 

Here was the complete setlist, as played, for the second of Wilco’s three sets at this year’s SBS (there were no changes/omissions from the printed setlist):

 

1. You Satellite

2. Random Name Generator

3. Everyone Hides

4. Cold Slope>

5. King Of You

6. Meant To Be

7. Jesus, etc.

8. Born Alone

9. Side With The Seeds

10. Either Way

11. Sonny Feeling

12. Camera

13. Whole Love

14. Hummingbird

15. Box Full Of Letters

16. Annihilation

17. Spiders (Kidsmoke)

    ---

    Encore:

18. Too Far Apart

19. Theologians

20. Kicking Television

21. Just A Kid

22. Let’s Not Get Carried Away

[Albert Tatlock]

T(equil)a

[theashtraysays]

Keeping tabs from afar this year, I did get a few pings (and a video) on my phone that You Satellite was indeed the opener.  I also noted that it was kinda the perfect tune to play after a YLT set that scorched as always.  Hoping we get that back into the rotation soon, not to mention being a valid choice for solo acoustic shows.  I had been shot down on that a few times lately in both formats so it's certainly vindicating.  

Sonny Feeling - I remember during an early W(TA) tour show that they played it and got a rather tepid response from the crowd.  Jeff mentioned then something like "In ten years you're gonna be begging for that song."  I think he always thought it would be more of a hit (on the Wilco scale, not necessarily Top 40) than it ended up being.  

As for Jeff pulling TRIPLE duty at this fest, that's gotta be a stretch for the old man.  I'm surprised he remembered to put on socks, let alone all those "words" and stuff.