Fell in Love With a Band

I was so distracted by making sure the Xylophone player got a mention in my last entry about the American Analog Set that I forgot to even write about the support group that night! It was The Go Find, who are pretty good, very like the No Twist. Hurrah. There was absolutely no Xylophone last night at the Wilco show, so Johnathan Rice holds a very good chance of making it into this piece.

Johnathan Rice. I got lost on the way to the venue so I missed most of his set. The first song I heard the whole way through was introduced by Johnathan asking the crowd if they understood the term "passive aggressive", because this song was his passive agressive way of dealing with past heartbreak. "I sing the pain off my face", he sang. His speaking voice is soft, with a southern drawl, in contrast with the rather heavy and low vocal that he delivers. (well, actually, the passive agressive song was sung in the style of Johnny Cash, he told us.) At the end of his set he thanked everyone for coming and "being so damn polite" and the hearty applause didn`t stop til he came back onstage for an encore. "Lucky i wrote more than 7 songs. Um, what shall I play?" he said, and he actually look flummoxed for a moment or two trying to think of a good song to play. He was rubbing his chin, scratching his head saying, "this doesn`t happen often". He is scruffy and charming and reminded me a little bit of Ryan Adams.

Wilco are amazing. Their set blew me away. With 6 of them onstage their sound is just so powerful and they are such great musicians and work together so well. Their songs have so many stop-and-go moments and nobody is ever a step off beat. The musicianship and skill of Wilco serves as a perfect delivery to complement Tweedy's lyrics. "The ashtray said you were up all night", "His aim in life was to be an echo", "I got my name from rock n roll", "I look like someone I used to know". I kind of dont know what to say really, they were just wow.

Their set went something like this.

Hell is Chrome
Muzzle of Bees
I am Trying to Break Your Heart
More Like the Moon
Jesus, Etc
At Least, That's What You Said
Summerteeth
Via Chicago
Hummingbird
War on War
Spiders (Kidsmoke)
Misunderstood
Late Greats
Sunken Treasure
Airline to Heaven
Kingpin
I´m a Wheel
I Shall be Released

I was sad they didn`t play "Heavy Metal Drummer" or even "Theologians". There were 2 encores. Throughout the night, Jeff didn`t say anything to the crowd until halfway through the first encore, when he said "hey, howya doin?". Then, "for the first 45 minutes it was just pure art. Now we can do all the 'hi Berlin!´ bullshit". He said normally they don`t say this but the crowd was the best ever. Well, they were the best ever.

dear Wilco,

i <3 you.