Review: Wilco - First Avenue - 6/29/01

The Glenn Kotche era officially begins...

Glenn Kotche performed in his first official Wilco concert Friday night in
Minneapolis at a 110 minute show at First Ave that featured plenty of
familiar tunes and a few surprises. On the way home, I was trying to recall
how many times Wilco has appeared at the Ave. and I figured that this was at
least their 14th or 15th appearance there. There was a large, but far from
sold-out crowd, which was a blessing in disguise coming on the 5th straight
day of horrible hot, humid weather. The stage set-up was the same as the
last few tours, although it seems that like every time I see the band there
are a few more guitars and vintage amps on stage - it's really a pretty
impressive sight in a club setting. It looked like there were a few new
analog synths (including one sitting on an amp over by John) and there was a
new (I think) Fender Rhodes electric piano that showed up on a few songs.


The main set surprisingly only featured one new song ("War on War"), and was
somewhat laid back. Jeff only touched an electric guitar very briefly (at
the very end of a restrained "Misunderstood"), so maybe he's still
transitioning from the solo tour earlier this year. For many of the songs,
keyboards (particularly the organ) were dominant over the guitars. Jay and
Leroy were constantly switching between various keyboards and guitars the
whole night; it's obvious that this 5 piece lineup is very versatile and
they used it to good effect. I'm no percussion expert but I thought Glenn
did a great job. His style is definitely different than Ken Coomers' but
it's obviously difficult to put in words. He used "mallets" on a few songs
and had some impressive moments during the main set, noticeably on "Forget
the Flowers" and the main-set closer, a loose but intense "Sunken Treasure."
The highlight of the main set was probably "Airline to Heaven" which has
turned into something of a 3 guitar rave-up. It started out with a beautiful
"tease" intro and just kept picking up steam as it went along. For some
reason I kept thinking about Led Zep's 3rd album (the "acoustic" one) during
this killer performance. I've loved this song live since I first heard it
last May down at Carleton College and it just keeps getting better.

Since this was the first full-length Wilco show in several months, there
were a few glitches, snafus and tentative moments, but everyone handled them
OK. The band has clearly been rehearsing a lot - there were several very
nice intros and as the night progressed the boys increasingly found a
groove. Jeff was sort of in his withdrawn / intense mode and didn't say much
most of the night, although at the beginning of the first encore he did
offer up "I think we did pretty good for our first show - at least I don't
feel like slitting my wrists..."

Although there are lots of familiar songs in the main set, I did notice that
there were some new wrinkles incorporated into many of them: a nice organ
part on "Blood of the Lamb," some new keyboard fills on "A Shot in the Arm,"
Jeff's cool acoustic solo on "How to Fight Loneliness." Without some of
these wrinkles, this setlist obviously would be in danger of veering close
to "been there, done that" status.

The first encore was 30 minutes long and featured 7 songs - a nice mini-set.
We finally got a dose of some more new stuff starting off with (I believe)
the premier of the elusive "Jesus, etc.," one of the 4 songs from "Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot" that hasn't been played live yet (although it was on the solo
tour "master" setlist). Very cool sounding "pop" song with intriguing lyrics
and aided by Jesse Green on violin. For the encore, Jeff finally played
electric guitar and the energy level was noticeably higher as the set
progressed. Before a sublime version of "Kamera" - which was kicked off with
Glenn triggering a sample featuring a radio voice reciting
"Yankee-Hotel-Foxtrot" after Jeff asked "Glenn, what's the name of our new
record?" - Jeff mumbled something about "these songs need a camera," perhaps
in reference to some of the "non-linear" modes of writing he admitted to
adopting over the last year. "I'm the Man Who Loves You" has mutated from
the "Faces-ish" feel it had last year to a rockin' version dominated by
Jay's acoustic slide work. The biggest shock was to hear a brilliant
stand-alone version of "I Got You." Wonder if this "divorce" from the oh-so
familiar "Red-Eyed and Blue" segue is permanent? Another subtle new wrinkle
with a familiar song. The encore set ended with a smokin' version of "Casino
Queen" and a long, ragged version of "Monday" that started off with a
pounding intro from Glenn. The crowd was pretty much nuts by this point and
the main floor was pogoing like it was 1997.

After a brief respite, the band came up and started noodling around with
John sitting on the floor and Leroy down on his knees fiddling with synth on
stage left. After awhile it sounded like "Reservations" was coming and
indeed it did. This was a moodier version than the one they played last
November at First Ave, but still very powerful in its own unassuming way.
This was quite a shocking change in energy levels, which perhaps was too
much for some to handle - at one point it appeared that some idiot threw
something at the stage, which seemed to distract Jeff. Maybe it pissed him
off because the band exited rather quickly after the song. Who knows, maybe
it was planned that way; regardless, it was a nice little postscript to a
rousing first encore set.

All in all, a very enjoyable night. The new songs sounded uniformly great
and it was interesting to hear some of them in their full band incarnations
after repeated listenings to recordings from the solo tour. The departure of
Ken Coomer is obviously significant but it was a pleasure to see this new
chapter in the band's history begin on a high note. Oh yeah, the entire
night was recorded by a pro film crew, perhaps working on the upcoming
documentary.

Hopefully more comments after tonight's show.

SETLIST

1. Misunderstood
2. A Shot in the Arm
3. War on War
4. I'm Always in Love (back to the pop version)
5. How To Fight Loneliness
6. Hesitating Beauty
7. Blood of the Lamb
8. She's a Jar
9. California Stars (somewhere in here; not sure of exact position)
10. Forget the Flowers
11. Airline to Heaven
12. Remember the Mountain Bed
13. Sunken Treasure

ENCORE 1
14. Jesus, etc.
15. Kamera
16. I'm the Man Who Loves You
17. I Got You
18. Hoodoo Voodoo
19. Casino Queen
20. Monday

ENCORE 2
21. Reservations