By: Bob Longmore
An unshaven Jeff Tweedy walked out wearing a lime green blazer and looking like a teddy bear dragged three blocks by the family station wagon – huggable and cute, but dirty.
The crowd in the unadorned, intimate DECC auditorium stood and were perfectly pushed and pulled along on a two hour ride that included two encores, 21 songs and some awkward yet charming banter by Tweedy.
Tweedy grabbed an acoustic guitar and began strumming the chords to “Misunderstood.” When he got to the question of, “Do you still love rock and roll?” the eager crowd loudly roared. The quiet contemplative strumming continued for “Far, Far Away” and into the first half of “Handshake Drugs,” where the song transformed into an electronic maelstrom. Nels Cline elicited random fits of noise from his guitar as Tweedy traded his acoustic for an electric and laid into a Neil Young-style repetitive sixteenth note solo.
During “Shot in the Arm,” the jangle that first appeared on Summerteeth flickered just below the surface as this new stone-faced Wilco provided a thunderstorm of noise behind the song. Bridging the old and the new, a spotlight shone from behind Tweedy as he started the song “At Least That Is What You Said.” Slowly and almost imperceptibly the other band members appeared from the dark as they brought their instruments to a simmer until finally the band lurched as one into the amodal climax.
The auditorium was never shy about singing backup vocals. “Jesus, Etc.” was just one example. Although we collectively fumbled when Tweedy tried to hand off the, “Our love/ Our love is all of God’s money” part, I don’t think the audience or the band were discouraged.
Tweedy said little for the first half of the show, but he finally paused to thank the crowd. “This has gotta’ be one of our favorites states,” he said. “We’ve never been to Duluth before. Do I dare say you guys are superior?” The crowd reacted with an enthusiastic mixed reaction of cheers and groans.
“That’s why I don’t talk into the microphone much,” replied the sheepish singer.
Looking out among the crowd during “I’m the Man That Loves you,” there was a sea of bobbing heads. Although I’m sure a large portion of the audience probably drove up from the Twin Cities, there was a carefree vibe not usually present at theater shows in Minneapolis. There were people dancing in the aisles, everyone smiling, everyone standing and swaying to the music. All of the symptoms of a euphoric crowd.
After the first encore break and a routine “Future Age,” a jazzy-prog version of “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” highlighted all that this 2006 version of Wilco has become. There was a rollercoaster of quiet steady rhythm and loud pummeling grooves, a spacestation’s worth of blips and beeps which constituted Cline’s guitar part, and by the time Tweedy took the reigns with a Richard Hell guitar solo ten minutes had passed.
The second encore included the classic “Forget the Flowers” and the only Woody Guthrie song of the night, “Airline to Heaven.”
Tweedy then asked the crowd for more help on the next two songs. We ooh-ooh’d beautifully on “Heavy Metal Drummer.” During “Kingpin,” Tweedy implored the crowd to outshout the Canadian crowds they have been playing for on this tour. “This is what we’re known for,” said Tweedy in reference to Americans being loud and brash. Tweedy led us through a call and response where he would sing, “How can I?” and we screamed our lungs out. “It’s good to be back in the USA where the anger is,” joked Tweedy.
The band put the night to bed with “Late Greats” and we all filed out, giddy, sweaty and amazed.
Set List:
Misunderstood
Far, Far Away
Handshake Drugs
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
Skip Ahead (?)
Shot in the Arm
At Least That is What You Said
Jesus, Etc.
I Know It’s True (?)
Theologians
I’m The Man That Loves You
Ashes of American Flags
War on War
Hummingbird
Encore 1:
Future Age
Spiders (Kidsmoke)
Encore 2:
Airline to Heaven
Forget the Flowers
Heavy Metal Drummer
Kingpin
Late Greats
Location Info:
Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC)
Artist Info: Wilco
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