Ben’s post of the set list I sent from last night said it succinctly: he shoulda been there.
Such is the problem with being band-obsessed, as both he and I are with Wilco, Chicago’s masters of noise and joy, melancholy and euphoria.
Tuesday’s second of three shows at the Wiltern had, overall, a different tone than both Monday’s raging yet unemotional set and Saturday’s celebratory blowout. This one concentrated more on the intimacy of the best parts of the band’s catalog, from the haunting opener “Via Chicago” (with both its whisper-soft intro and cacophonous climax) all the way to the first encore, when Jeff Tweedy led the sextet through a nonstop run from “Poor Places” to “Reservations” to “Spiders (Kidsmoke).”
Even the prog-jam of that last track took on greater meaning, as Tweedy (who’s somewhat making a routine of this) dropped his guitar into the audience midway through, allowing a kid who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old to strum it, living his rock ‘n’ roll future in real time.
Last night wasn’t the best Wilco show I’ve ever seen — and I don’t mean that as a slight; it was still tremendous — but it may have been the clearest example of why I think they’re the best band in the world right now.
Often, when I say that, people look at me funny and respond: “What about Radiohead?”
Certainly Radiohead is a great band, but their music is distant on purpose: it’s not about the human condition so much as about the ability to withdraw from the human condition, to be a loner. What Tweedy has done is make it both about him and about you; he’s able to both sing ridiculously inane phrases (”I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue”) and hit upon universal truths (”I’m the man who loves you”) while making each sound equally poetic.
Onstage, he can joke with drummer Glenn Kotche about their merch (”this armband is really comfortable!”), then dip seamlessly into a song about addiction (“A Shot in the Arm”), breaking two guitar strings from intense strumming while turning even that admission of a pained existence into a shared-experience singalong, without the least hint of cheesiness.
That ability to connect, effortlessly, is apparent in all the songs Wilco played last night that hadn’t been touched so far in this SoCal stretch: the breezy bluegrass of “Forget the Flowers” … the Beach Boys harmonies of “NothingsEverGonnaStandInMyWay (Again)” … the Dylanesque “A Magazine Called Sunset” … most notably the aforementioned “Reservations,” a soft weeper with the refrain, “I’ve got reservations / About so many things / But not about you.”
It’s sung both apologetically and affirmatively, an acknowledgment of the importance of an interpersonal relationship, and how that union relates to the world as a whole. But on this night, as I internalized the lyrics, I took it to also be a reference to Tweedy’s broader relationship to his audience. He probably didn’t intend it that way, but as I stood — in the front row, no less — I felt like he was singing it right to me.
Call me crazy, but I’ve never felt anything approaching that from Thom Yorke in all the times I’ve seen him live. If you’ve got any other applicants, I’m all ears.
Jeff Miller, a regular contributor to Soundcheck, is Los Angeles Editor for Thrillist.com
As much as I love Radiohead, I agree with you. My friends have been talking about them as the best American band we have, but I think that’s assuming Radiohead’s better, which I don’t believe.