more wilco

On Saturday, May 17, we went back to the Pageant for the closing night of the tour leg.

Between being the end of a leg and the band having like a month off afterward, and it being St. Louis - which, I say again, is a freaking great place to see Wilco - we knew the show was going to be good. Did I say Thursday's show was good? Saturday's show pushed Thursday's show around in front of the girls, took its lunch money, and pretty much gave it a swirly.

This night the place filled up earlier - whether because it was a Saturday or because of the final night thing, I'm not sure. However, we were still able to get rail - precisely the opposite of Thursday, at the other side of the stage in front of the other guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, who is totally talented and looks like he's about fifteen years old and is Beck. He's not as fun to watch as Nels Cline, but nothin' wrong with him.

In fact - these two shows were the first time we got so close for Wilco - and really I've only been able to SEE Pat maybe once before in Cincinnati. Since he's at the end, and goes back to the keyboard a lot, he ducks out of sight depending on where you are.

If I hadn't been profoundly depressed and barely able to speak - long story; I'm over it - I would have had a lot more fun and would also be able to remember a lot more about the show. (We have a bootleg coming, which will help!) However, nothing could have kept me from hooting when Jeff came out in his Grand Ol' Opry Suit.

Set list from http://wilcobase.com/:

1. Misunderstood
2. Blood Of The Lamb
3. You Are My Face
4. Hummingbird
5. A Shot In The Arm
6. ELT
7. Pot Kettle Black
8. Handshake Drugs
9. Side With The Seeds
10. She's A Jar
11. Box Full Of Letters
12. Airline To Heaven
13. Jesus, Etc.
14. Impossible Germany
15. Pick Up The Change
16. Too Far Apart
17. Theologians
18. I'm The Man Who Loves You
encore 1:
1. Hate It Here
2. Walken
3. Monday
4. Kingpin
encore 2:
1. Bob Dylan's 49th Beard
2. Heavy Metal Drummer
3. Just A Kid
4. Red-Eyed And Blue
5. I Got You (At The End Of The Century)
6. Casino Queen
7. Hoodoo Voodoo
8. Outtasite (Outta Mind)
encore THREE!
1. I'm A Wheel

I don't even know what to say about that set list. THREE ENCORES. THIRTY SONGS. Three songs from the woody guthrie projects. She's a Jar - I love that song with all my being. Kingpin! I'm the man who loves you! I mean, I'm basically speechless. That show kicked my ass and took my name.

some snaps (don't forget to check out Jeff's suit!!) Oh, and they all wore Obama buttons.:

jeff & nels


ditto


john


Beck Pat


john


jeff

playing catchup with wilco (5/15, the pageant)

So Wilco did a three-night stand in St. Louis at our favorite venue on a thursday, friday, and saturday may 15-17. J and I went to the 15th and 17th (I messed up the presale date for the thursday show, but then they added the friday show later yay!). Wilco is a Chicago band - yes - but St. Louis claims them very heartily. Jeff Tweedy's from St. Louis (basically; he's famously from Belleville on the Illinois side, but still) and the band is deeply embraced by STL.

So on the 15th we were thinking about finding seats, but even though we weren't exactly early, the Pageant continues it's weird-ass trend of everyone finding seats early and then filling up the floor slowly and late, and so J and I went down on the floor and, although the middle was pretty full, we had leisure to check out the right side and the left side before settling at the rail on the left, directly before guitarist Nels Cline.

It's not like I didn't respect Nels Cline before, but seeing him play from that vantage point was amazing. He moved abruptly far up my short list of guitarists. I mean, talented, yes, innovative, yes, but also just so freaking into it and crazy. You could tell he wasn't throwing himself and his guitars around to showboat, but just because he was so swept up by it. And no wonder. Cat got skilz yo.

I didn't keep a setlist because, well, once in a while I just want to have fun, dammit. Between taking pictures and keeping a list, sometimes my concert tasks get kind of annoying, or at least a bit distracting. Here's a review from the RFT, where I yoinked the setlist until I found that it was screwed up, so I went to wilcobase, which did not let me down:

1. Sunken Treasure
2. You Are My Face
3. Hummingbird
4. Ashes of American Flags
5. Company In My Back
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Pot Kettle Black
8. A Shot in the Arm
9. On and On and On
10. Misunderstood
11. Far, Far Away
12. Impossible Germany
13. New Madrid
14. Jesus, Etc.
15. California Stars
16. Walken
17. I’m the Man Who Loves You
18. Heavy Metal Drummer
Encore one:
1. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
2. Hate It Here
3. Kingpin
Encore two:
1. Passenger Side
2. Red-Eyed and Blue
3. I Got You (At the End of the Century)
4. Casino Queen
5. Outtasite (Outta Mind)

I mean just look at that freaking list will you?!? My god. We were virtually speechless when we got out of there what seemed like six hours later. It was fantastic, the best (up to that date) of the wilco shows we'd seen and just brilliant all the way around.

Nels' pedal board


Nels himself


Nels w/lap steel


He was like a Dr. Seuss character, sort of, and seemed like he was about nine feet tall. Weird sumbitch.


Jeff w/acoustic




jeff & john singing


jeff acoustic


Jeff


jeff & john


Awesome awesome show. Jeff makes the most hilarious audience banter. You feel like he's perpetually amused but always ready to tell you to fuck off if you need it. Or, in one case, "Sir. Please. put your shirt back on." He always gives his family a couple of shoutouts and usually plays Casino Queen for his dad. He said his dad had requested New Madrid this time because of the earthquakes this spring. "It woke us up in Chicago too."

thornhill, wilco

The new Wilco album Sky Blue Sky dropped yesterday. I had time to pick it up at noon but haven't gotten to listen to it yet. I know that I will love it, though. It's also fun that a couple of the songs are already familiar from hearing them live (namely, "Impossible Germany" and "Walken"). I know I'll like the DVD, too. (If you haven't seen Jeff Tweedy's live solo acoustic dvd Sunken Treasure, check it out here, at amazon.

In other news, my husband J's band Thornhill's cd Center of Town is now available at cd baby right here.

Old Crow Medicine Show and Wilco at Cincinnati's Tall Stacks Festival

I went on an Ohio road trip last weekend, and on Saturday my friend Shannon, her husband, and I went to OCMS and Wilco at festival last Saturday.

We got there and got a space not five minutes before the band before Wilco started. We were there for Wilco, but I rather like OCMS, so it worked well for me.

OCMS setlist (best I could do):

1. Cocaine Habit (aka Woody Guthrie's "Take a Whiff On Me")
2. (Johnny got your gun? unsure)
3. Down Home Girl
4. Big Time in the Jungle
5. Poor Man
6. Union Maid
7. (eastbound train? unsure)
8. God's Got It
9. I Hear Them All
10. Bobcat Tracks
11. Minglewood Blues
12. Wagon Wheel
13. Hard to Tell
14. Tear It Down
15. Band Intros/Tell It To Me
encore
16. (mother earth? unsure)
17. Hard to Love

Here's how far away we were:


J and I saw OCMS in St. Louis a couple of years ago opening for Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. We had their first - only, at the time - CD, which (like the new one) was produced by David Rawlings, and he sat in with their whole set when we saw them before, which was great. In St. Louis when they did band intros he introduced them by names of well-known St. Louis Cardinals past (baseball team), and I'd forgotten all about that until, in Cincinnati, he introduced them as great 70s Cincinnati Reds players and manager. hah. Anyway, they were as frenetic as ever, but their mellower stuff held up pretty well too. I couldn't listen to them every day, but I find that I'm more tolerant of some kinds of country music as long as it's not mainstream radio country ("hat music"). If it's alt.country or bluegrass or classic old monaural or folk-thrash, I can dig it. I think it's about the authenticity. Popular country music today is the suckiest of the most unauthentic music ever.

For Wilco we squirmed half again as close, I suppose. Visibility varied, but later I got a better view when things shifted around.
Wilco set list:
1. The Late Greats
2. A Shot in the Arm
3. (I know you're not listening? unsure.bad fan!)
4. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
5. War on War
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Jesus etc.
8. Walken
9. Airline to Heaven
10. Theologians
11. I'm the Man Who Loves You
12. Misunderstood
13. Forget the Flowers
14. Hummingbird
(encore)
15. Heavy Metal Drummer
16. (Carried Away? unsure/new?)
17. Kingpin

Or, if you're keeping score:
Four from A Ghost is Born
Five from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Three from Being There
A shocking mere one from Summerteeth
One from the Mermaid Avenue sessions (not California Stars, either!)
And possibly three new. Walken is definitely new (although they played it last time we saw them).

Anyway, despite our difficulties seeing, they were really on, and the older stuff and the brand new stuff all got as good responses as the last couple of albums stuff, so it's good. Crowd was really into it, musicianship was smoking. Wilco just does not disappoint. I dont' know how many times I've seen them now, must be going on half a dozen, and each time I'm reminded what a really, really great band they are. They're still doing that really huge thing at the end of "Misunderstood" - if you've seen them, you know. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! It's awesome. And I always love "Kingpin." They didn't do any truly old stuff - I like when they do New Madrid, and Casino Queen is always fun, but at a festival, short set, etc. Boy, now I want to see a whole night again soon.

Some bad, distant photos:














At the end, the crew was slow to come out, so I went down to try for a set list, thinking I'd still have a chance. No such luck, it was not to be, so I tried to get a picture of pedal board instead. No luck there either - couldn't get over the monitor.