The second performance of Wilco’s two-night stand at 9:30 Club was, in a word: mesmerizing, replete with beauty, humor and inspiration.
Lead singer Jeff Tweedy rambled on stage, glowering like Johnny Cash with his band in tow, and dove in to “Handshake Drugs,” which sounded simultaneously lovely and harrowing, considering his recent stint in rehab for addiction to painkillers. While Wilco tends towards beautifully haunting songs, it didn’t take them long to provide a real moment of unadulterated joy.
Three songs in, Tweedy half-whispered “His goal in life was to be an echo,” and waved around an imaginary baton as he conducted the adoring fans who immediately began a sort of campfire sing-a-long to recent single “Hummingbird.” The entire night was filled with the same type of hero-worship, as audience members murmured what they clearly believed to be the work of a poet for the dispossessed. In response, Tweedy made jokes to release the intense atmosphere.
The concert was webcast on npr.org and rumored to be the subject of a live DVD. The band most likely impressed all audiences, tangible or not.
Guitarist Nels Cline brought the subtlety necessary to reproduce Wilco’s recent Grammy winner, A Ghost is Born (Nonesuch), live. His expertise was highlighted on what was without a doubt the high point of the evening, “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” a meandering song that expanded well beyond its 10-minute, 45-second track length, but always with a sense of self. Every guitar lick had a purpose, every drumbeat mattered, and Wilco became a sort of collective jazz virtuoso, adding depth to the song, but never deviating from its organic base. While some bands become boring and masturbatory when given the opportunity to expand songs live, Wilco took the opportunity to make a good song absolutely mind-blowing.
Wilco also concentrated on 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch), a record of lush production and ethereal soundscapes. Wilco expertly walked a tightrope of virtuosity, most notably on “I am Trying to Break Your Heart,” which featured a breakdown at the end that could have been pointless, but was instead gorgeous.
The two encores drew heavily from the early record Mermaid Avenue (Elektra) with a performance of Woody Guthrie’s “California Stars.” Continuing the Guthrie tradition, Tweedy waxed politically, declaring that Jesus Christ is not pro-war, not an American and would have a hard time fitting in with the Republican Party. “Jesus was a hippie,” he said, to raucous applause.
Tweedy then responded to a request for an old favorite with the rejoinder “We’re done with Wilco songs. Wilco is so 2004.” The band backed up the assertion, and promptly went into Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
No, I’m not kidding. And yes, there was cowbell.
The band closed with Charles Wright’s “Comment (If all Men are Truly Brothers),” and asked the audience to sing along to the words pleading for a better world. The band then sauntered off stage for the last time, 27-songs and over two hours after they had begun.
