Jeff Tweedy - 12/03/2013 Uptown Theater, Kansas City, MO

Wilco's frontman Jeff Tweedy 

This was a fantastic show at the Uptown Theater to start off Jeff's solo acoustic tour.

Jeff played a brilliant set of music that spanned his whole career including songs he wrote for Mavis Staples.

There was one joker in the crowd that pissed him off at the start of the show and progressively got worse until he addressed it.  He put the guy in his place and had the fans behind him the whole way.

The whole night was filled with gems including I'm Trying To Break Your Heart, Jesus, etc and Bob Dylan's 49th Beard.  Shot In The Arm & New Madrid were really amazing and finished off the show strong.

The sound was a little rough at the start but progressively got better over the rest of the show.  Jeff complained about the lighting but from the seats it seemed fine.

If you ever get a chance to see Jeff Tweedy Solo I would jump on it.

Set List: Solitaire; I Am Trying to Break Your Heart; Remember the Mountain; Sunken Treasure; Long Time Ago (Golden Smog); Passenger Side; Dawned on Me; Radio Cure; Chinese Apple (Loose Fur); Kamera; One True Vine; Ruling Class; You and I; Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard; Jesus, Etc.; Born Alone; Laminated Cat (aka Not for the Season). Encore: New Madrid (Uncle Tupelo); California Stars; The Thanks I Get; Shot in the Arm; Acuff Rose (Uncle Tupelo).

 

Wilco - 10/06/2009 KCMO Crossroads

It was a chilly October night in Kansas City down in the Crossroads district, which is where they have started to create more of an art space and have a lot of artists lofts and other store fronts. Still not the greatest of places, but looks like it could be on it's way. Crossroads is a venue that sits behind Grinders, a hamburger joint. It must have been an old vacant lot or something, but there's a stage on the south end, a nice grade, so those further back can see the stage well and a lot of beer tents and other vendors. It's outdoors so in October depending on the year can be a bit of a challenge. This night it was about 49 degrees, but with a sold out show they were packed in good to keep some heat in.

Liam Finn was the opening Act and came on promptly at 8pm. He is a two person band from Australia, son of Neil Finn from Crowded House. He uses loops on drums and guitar to get one instrument going and then jumps on the other while one loops. He plays with Eliza Jane Barnes, who plays an electronic drum, cow bell and various other instruments to back as well as sings. They were entertaining, but not exactly my kind of music, at least in the live sense.

Wilco came on shortly after 9pm and started off with The Price is Right theme and jumped into Wilco(the song) as they seem to have been starting many of this tours shows. This is one of the songs off of Wilco(the album) that came out a few months back. I would highly recommend picking it up. It looks like I forgot to review, but there will be one to follow sometime soon if I have time.

Jeff Tweedy made some comments throughout the first couple songs asking if people were cold, but the answer was always no. I think Jeff was as the wind was certainly coming across the stage. Still it didn't stop the band from playing a 2 1/2 hour set filled with songs ranging from all the years.

Some of the highlights to me were Bull Black Nova from the new CD. They really jammed it out during Impossible Germany, it was especially cool with 3 guys playing guitar and jamming together. That's part of what makes them such a fun band to see.

Jeff used the same lines I read in reviews about trying to get everyone to sing Jesus, Etc. He compared us to Minnesota and Iowa, the two previous shows. Bother were indoor and I'm sure sounded louder. Still it was a fun sing-a-long for everyone.

One of my favorite songs was played as usual, but certainly made me happy. That was Handshake Drugs, it's been a favorite of mine for a couple years. They did a great Walken as well as Can't Stand It.

During the first Encore, Liam & EJ came out and played for a couple of songs and then Jeff had asked the crowd to elect a president and vote on what song we wanted to hear. Everyone yelled Kingpin and so he looked at the band and they jammed into it. It was a nice KC version of the tune.

All in all, it was a fun night of music and as always it was a nice place to see a show. But I do hope one of these times I get to see them play at The Uptown. The last 4 times I've seen them have all been outside, so a change to indoor would be nice.

I'm already looking forward to the next time they come to town. Check out their website at http://www.wilcoworld.net/ for tour dates and streams of live shows. Recently they have the 08/2009 Dublin show as well as the 4/2009 Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee. I love throwing them on the computer to get that live experience.

If you get a chance, do see them live as they really are a fun band to see and really have a lot of talent flowing throughout the show from Drums, Keys, Bass and Guitars. Nils really loves to jam out and is really good. Jeff has a great voice and really knows how to put it all together.


Setlist:

01. Price's Right Intro > Wilco
02. I'm Trying to Break Your Heart
03. Bull Black Nova
04. You are My Face
05. One Wing
06. Shot in the arm
07. Radio Cure
08. Impossible Germany
09. At Least That's what she said
10. One by One
11. I'll Fight
12. Handshake Drugs
13. Sonny Feeling
14. Hate it Here
15. Can't stand it
16. Jesus Etc(Sung by the Crowd)
17. Walken
18. I'm the Man Who Love You
Encore: 1
19. Misunderstood
20. I'm Always in Love
21. You Never Know
22. California Stars
23. Kingpin
Encore: 2
24. Late Greats
25. Monday > Outa Mind Outa site
26. Hoodoo
27. I'm a Wheel

Wilco - 9:30 Club Washington DC - Audio Review

Wilco played a gig live two weeks ago at the Riviera in Chicago which was the 4th night of their homestead series as they are a band from Chiccago. This was broadcast on WXRT and was an amazing show. You can certaily find copies of it floating around like at bt.etree.org the date of that show was 2/19/2008.

Now, just over a week later they played the 9:30 Club in Washington DC and it was broadcast by NPR's All Songs Considered live concert series. You can listen to it for yourself at All Song Considered Live: Wilco.

All Songs Considered has done a number of quite amazing shows over the past couple of years and has now made many of them available as poscasts. When you go to the like and click on podcast you will see many great artists live shows out there like Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, Neko Case, The New Pornographers, The Decemberists, Art Brut, Nickel Creek, Iron & Wine, Okkervill River and many more, some 60 or so shows currently available. I really hope that this one will make it out to the collection as well.

As there are alread some really nice audience recordings of this show, it would be great to have the one directly from All Songs Considered. Not sure if that will happen as this is actually the 3rd time they have done a live show for NPR according to it's website.

This is a fantastic one to listen to, well over two hours of fantastic songs from all the years they've been together.

Sky Blue Sky is the latest cd to be released by Wilco. It certainly takes them back to more of their original style in music, when they got started. I've been a fan of Wilco for many years and I really like the sound of the new cd.

The setlist for this show was as follows:

Sunken Treasure
Mountain Bed

Company in My Back
You Are My Face
Side with the Seeds
She's a Jar
Shot in the Arm
Nothingsever
Handshake Drugs
Pot Kettle Black
Roses Bloom
Impossible Germany
Simple
Someday Soon
Box Full of Letters
Always in Love
Pieholden

Jesus Etc.
Hate It Here
Walken
I'm the Man
Humming Bird
On and On and On
Via Chicago
California Stars
Casino Queen
I'm a Wheel
Monday

The whole show was a highlight to me. Personally I loved how it started of with Sunken Treasure going into Mountain Bed. Some other greats Handshake Drugs, Impossible Germany, Jesus Etc., Walken and Casino Queen were all great.

The last time I saw them in Kansas City this past October, many of these same songs were played and it was an awesome show to have been at.

If you can't make it to see them live, I would highly recommend listening to some of their live shows like this one on NPR as well as the WXRT show from Chicago. They put out a double live cd Kicking Television a couple years back in 2006 that is certainly worth going out and buying or downloading from iTunes.

Wilco have always been an impressive live band to see and I hope someday, if one doesn't exist, they will do a full show concert DVD with HD Sound Quality. That would be amazing.

Go to the link above and have a listen - give yourself some time as it's a good long show.

Enjoy!