like all the other millenia-era wilco shows i've listened to lately, this one was a grower. at first i spent awhile nearly driving off the road while screwing with my CD player's EQ (the recording, though a SBD, is not necessarily the best, and the vocals are really low in the mix with the odd combination of drums and keys being preeminent). on top of all that, "candyfloss", which is the first song and one of my early-era wilco favorites, starts about 2/3rds of the way through the song. what is it with wilco recordings lately and cutting off the first half of the opening song?
i was considering taking the disc out and playing something else until "i must be high" came on. it was a really interesting version: energetic and folksy, but with that unmistakable post-summerteeth electronic touch. this was a theme throughout the show. some of the best moments of this show are the times when you get to hear a.m. or being there songs sounding more like yankee hotel outtakes than their original versions. another main set highlight was "hotel arizona", hands down my favorite song on being there, recreated into a wholly different animal and yet still just familiar enough to be fascinating.
this band sounds so different than the raucous noise-jam band of even a few years previous. while they're clearly still willing to experiment on stage, they do so with a little bit more patience, and ultimately their sound is better for it. take, for example, "how to fight loneliness", which gets a few little instrumental jams throughout the song. while it might have been "experimental" for the wilco of '97 to scale this quiet, introspective song into a flurry of feedback screams as it neared its end, this wilco peppers the song with quiet but complex instrumental interplay that's just as impressive but that suits the tone of the song. when every single song doesn't end with everyone screaming and guitars catching on fire, it makes the songs in the set more distinguishable and thus makes the show in general a more nuanced experience.
anyway, one of the "loud" highlights, as usual, was "someone else's song", played as a metal dirge. the main set closed with "misunderstood", and most of the double (triple?) encore was mermaid avenue songs. so if you're not a fan of those albums, the second half of this show might be a wash for you. i really dug it, especially, as usual, the "hoodoo voodoo" closer.
if there's one gripe i have about this show it's that, for all the summerteeth material in the setlist, none of the songs were played like summerteeth songs. maybe this was a choice on the band's part, or maybe they simply just didn't have the equipment, but when you hear a song like "can't stand it" (or "candyfloss", or "i'm always in love", etc.) without all the little flourishes that are present on the album version, the song tends to sound less artistically different and more just flat.
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