Wilco is one of those bands that is better heard live.
As great as their recorded music is, it pales in comparison to what Jeff Tweedy and the band do with it live.
I have been a fan for a while, but didn’t get to see them until last summer in Sayreville — a great show — on their tour for the stellar Kicking Television live disc, which fleshed out the sonic experiments Tweedy had engaged in on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born adding muscle to their bones. The Sayreville show did not disappoint (read this — $, sorry — for my impressions of the April 2006 show at the Starland Ballroom).
This brings me to the Red Bank show on Friday. Wilco’s fine new album is quite different than its most recent predecessors — very much a Wilco disc, to be sure, but quieter and lacking the electronic and sonic trappings. The critical reception has been positive, if a bit muted, with a few critics dismissing it as a step backward.
The quiet nature of the disc obscures for some — including me on first listen — the subtle sonic layering punctuated by Nels Clines’ guitar and Tweedy’s plaintive vocals. It is a sound that seemed quite ripe for Wilco’s live treatment.
And it was.
On Friday, June 22, at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, the band played seven songs from the new disc, thickening and expanding them. Played live, songs like “Side with the Seeds” and “Impossible Germany” gained new identities, their concert incarnations underscoring that Sky Blue Sky is of a piece with everything that has followed and that the twists and turns of Wilco’s career are really not so much detours as a natural progression of growth.
There were songs that were left off the setlist — notably “What Light” from the new album and “Muzzle of Bees” from A Ghost is Born (and I would like to see the band do “She’s a Jar” from Summerteeth), but that really is just quibbling.
It was a great show with about two hours and 20 minutes of music (24 songs?!?!?!?), some technical difficulties — a guitar connection that didn’t work and a dead microphone that caused Tweedy some consternation and resulted in the band walking off the stage. I figured it was just a break before the encores, but Tweedy immediately returned, acoustic guitar in hand and offered a nice version of the Uncle Tupelo song “Acuff-Rose” to a hushed audience.
The encores that vollowed — “California Stars,” “Heavy Metal Drummer,” “The Late Greats,” “I’m Always in Love” and “I Am a Wheel” seemed to go on and on in a good way, Tweedy making a promise to keep playing, to give us our money’s worth to offset the technical snafus.
The band certainly did that.
The setlist (I got this off of Cafe Eclectica Music and it doesn’t jibe exactly with my notes — see paranthetical):
1. Side with the Seeds; 2. You Are My Face; 3. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart; 4. Kamera; 5. Handshake Drugs; 6. A Shot in the Arm; 7. Impossible Germany; 8. Sky Blue Sky; 9. Shake It Off; 10. War on War; 11. Jesus, Etc.; 12. Theologians; 13. Hate It Here; 14. Acuff-Rose (Tweedy solo, no P.A.); 15. Walken; 16. I’m The Man Who Loves You; 17. Hummingbird; 18. Ashes of American Flags; 19. Spiders (Kidsmoke); (I could have sworn there was another song played here, though I could be wrong and it could have just been bad notetaking); 20. California Stars; 21. Heavy Metal Drummer; 22. The Late Greats; 23. I’m Always in Love; 24. I’m a Wheel
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Hank Kalet 