Wilco @ Hamer Hall - 27 March 2013
Wilco were a slow burn for me. An old friend tried to get me into them as far back as 2004, but to no avail. It took until Wilco (The Album) and then The Whole Love to have me convinced. Now I consider myself a Wilco fan but I don’t think they’d register in my top-20 bands. Keep that in mind while you read on. Looking back at the setlist I enjoyed the show more than I would have expected.
As a performance tonight’s show was excellent. Jeff Tweedy doesn’t have much of a stage presence but the rest of the band more than make up for that, especially Nels Cline. That man is something else! His solos during Impossible Germany and Art of Almost were highlights unto themselves.
The lighting and visuals showed so much promise, especially early on in Art of Almost, so it was disappointing to see how under-utilised they were for the rest of the set.
As a fan, but not a super-fan, I wasn’t particularly happy with the setlist. If you’d have asked me beforehand for the 10 songs I most wanted to see live, only three made the cut - Art of Almost, Heavy Metal Drummer and Jesus, Etc. All of those three were excellent, as were I Might, Whole Love and Impossible Germany. The shorter version of Spiders (Kidsmoke) they played was flat. Seeing that they had to cut six songs from their set as it was, that might have had something to do with that decision.
For interest’s sake, I’d have loved to have seen
- Misunderstood
- Outtasite (Outta Mind) - which was one of the songs cut
- Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Again)
- My Darling
- I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
- War On War
- Wilco (The Song)
- You Never Know
Maybe next time. At $110 per ticket though, there may not be a next time…
Rating:
Wilco - 8/10
