so partially as a consequence of good timing and needing to go to seattle anyway, i got to see wilco shows #3 and #4 this weekend. they were both fantastic in comparison to wilco shows #1 and #2, which were also fantastic in their own way. so. a little background:
wilco show #1 was in 2008 in spokane, at the opera house. i was in the midst of becoming a wilco fan, but wasn't familiar enough with many of their songs (except the ones on sky blue sky) to really fully appreciate the experience. similar to my first RA concert, appropriately enough, which i hated. well...i didn't hate my first wilco concert, but i certainly liked the fleet foxes (their opening band) much more. wilco #2 was in vienna, va, this summer. it was a solid show, but i was completely exhausted and it was in an amphitheatre, which meant that all of the sonic subtleties that make wilco interesting were obliterated by loud-ass speakers and the fact that i was a football field away from the stage. this week's shows were both in small old-school theatres, both with amazing sound, and one in which i had a seat 20 rows away from the stage, in the center of the room, and the other in which i was literally standing about 12 feet away from tweedy's mic stand. so yeah. that in and of itself made these shows better. but so did lots of other things! joy!
first of all, this band was more energetic throughout the entire show (both nights) than pretty much any band i've ever seen, except maybe picadilly circus in 2004. keep in mind, 5 members of this band are (i think) over 40, and one is almost 55. and they played with an energy that would quite literally but a bunch of coked-out 20 year olds in a black flag cover band to shame. it was amazing.
second, the lighting was amazing. after seeing phish this summer, i was finally made to understand the difference a decent, well thought-out light show can make at a live concert. the lighting for wilco was certainly not chris kuroda-grade lighting (but then again, what is?). but, they had rigged up a really badass textured sort-of-sheet (which you can see in the pictures in my other post) which really interestingly reflected the various types and colors of light back out into the audience all night long. also, there were the weird frankenstein electrodes that were behind and to the sides of the band, that performed all sorts of visual acrobatics for different songs all night. combine this with side-stage lights that threw weird, huge shadows of the band members on the walls of the theatre and an intense fog machine, and it was the best light show i've seen, ever, for a theatre show.
oh, there was also the music, which was good. some highlights:
first night opener = "sunken treasure" > "remember the mountain bed" > "hell is chrome". "sunken treasure" is basically the perfect opener, slow and plodding, but intense, and (in this version) driven by a lonely harmonica during the instrumental breaks. "mountain bed" is (as you might know from previous posts) pretty much my favorite love song ever, so it was great to hear it live, and this version was especially well done. tweedy's voice, especially on night one, was better and clearer than i've ever heard it, and never as much as it was on these first three songs. "hell is chrome" is just chilling, especially with the stage and the front rows of the crowd bathed in undulating red lights throughout.
"bull black nova" was INSANE. the lights were crazy, especially with the electrodes doing an eerie pantomime of an electric chair over the climax of the song while tweedy shrieked "PICK UP!!!" over and over again. the band converted me to a lot of songs from wilco (the album) during these shows, and "one wing" was the first. i've never liked this song much, save for the debut version they played a few years ago, which was a lot more dead-ish, jammy version than what ended up on the album. however, the version they played in portland was absolute, full-on rock and roll. they followed that up immediately with the fastest-tempo version of "shot in the arm" i've ever heard, which ended in an absolute wall of noise and a great visual moment featuring each member of the band cranking out the noise in the best way they could: nels flinging feedback at his amp, pat standing and going at the keyboards ben-folds-style, glenn and tweedy hammering away, and mikael slamming at all his weird sound pads with two huge pillows (yeah, i don't know why either, but it sounded awesome). it was great to hear "side with the seeds" > "at least that's what you said", and later on "far, far away". then they rocked out "sonny feeling", which is a song i unapologetically HATED until a few days ago. now i can at least stand it. both nights they played a run of "sonny feeling" > "hate it here" > "walken" > "i'm the man who loves you" to close their main set, and that was the one part of the show for me that was a little underwhelming. i'm not a huge fan of either of the middle songs, and though "i'm the man who loves you" was excellent both nights, it was sort of an odd run to end the set, especially getting the exact same songs in the exact same order both nights.
as another complaint in that vein, i was really concerned that we'd get essentially the same show both nights, and we almost did. the second night opened with "wilco (the song)", yet another song i didn't like until right that moment, but then we got five songs in the row in basically the same order as we'd gotten them the previous night. they were all great songs (especially, again, "bull black nova"), but it was a little disappointing, considering how many songs the band has in their repertoire. but then we got "radio cure" (!!!) and "pot kettle black" (!!!!!), which made up a bit for it. later, there was also "handshake drugs" and "i'll fight" before the aforementioned four-song run to end the set.
encores both nights were typically intense wilco-rock-encores. scott mcaughey came out both nights (once with peter buck, once with bill frisell) for "california stars". both nights the band opened the encore with buffalo springfield's "broken arrow", and the first night we also got "kingpin" (livin' in...portland...uhhh...oregon..."), and "i'm a wheel" (complete with pat pulling The Who-style guitar windmills). the second night was simultaneously a bit more exciting and disappointing: they played "you never know", then "box full of letters" (upon which i promptly lost my mind), and due to the response of the crowd to "letters", tweedy then said "how'd you guys like it if we played some more old songs?" only to come back a moment later and say "apparently we're out of time". they closed with an amazing "hoodoo voodoo", featuring probably the best moment of the two shows in a guitar duel between pat and nels. so, yeah. fantastic end, but i also would have loved to hear them play a few more A.M.-era songs.
anyway, i continue to be blown away by this band and will definitely be keeping an eye out for any other chance to see them, as somehow they just keep getting better with time.
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