After greater than 30 years collectively, Wilco nonetheless places on a hell of a dwell present.
Waxahatchee opened the live performance with a full backing band, together with Jeff Tweedy’s son, Spencer, on drums. Her 45-minute set included songs from her final two studio albums, Saint Cloud and Tiger’s Blood, although she did throw in her latest single, “Mud,” which was launched in March.
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Wilco took the stage round 8:45 p.m. — Jeff Tweedy casually waving to the gang, sporting a vivid pink button-down shirt, darkish denims, and a denim jacket. They launched into “Spider (Kidsmoke)” after which “Wishful Considering,” from the band’s 2004 Grammy profitable A Ghost Is Born.
The band performed some newer songs, equivalent to “Evicted” from 2023’s Cousins and “Hen And not using a Tail/Base of My Cranium” off of 2022’s Merciless Nation. However they knew everybody was there to see Wilco play their basic, older stuff, which Tweedy acknowledged as he nonchalantly launched the more moderen materials. They usually didn’t disappoint, blazing by means of “I Am Making an attempt to Break Your Coronary heart,” “Conflict On Conflict,” and “Jesus, And so forth.,” balancing the previous with the brand new.
One of many highlights of the present was guitarist Nels Cline, recent from a day facet gig at the area people performing arts theater Barking Legs, ripping by means of “Unattainable Germany.”
Being Mom’s Day, Tweedy devoted “I’m My Mom,” from Merciless Nation, to the entire mothers within the viewers, and to those that had been lacking theirs. “I miss mine,” he mentioned.
The theme of the evening appeared to revolve across the passage of time. Earlier than they performed the following two songs—“Field Filled with Letters,” from the group’s first album, 1995’s A.M., and “Annihilation,” from their 2024 EP Sizzling Solar Cool Shroud — Tweedy instructed the viewers that that they had been enjoying them collectively currently to indicate their creative progress over time. “The capo goes from right here to right here. The Beatles didn’t do this,” he mentioned, referring to the small gadget on the fretboard of a guitar that modifications the pitch of the instrument.
Tweedy, noting how good it was to be again in Chattanooga, shared a narrative about passing by means of on a household street journey to Florida when he was 8 or 9 and visiting one of many metropolis’s most well-known vacationer points of interest, Lookout Mountain. “I don’t bear in mind Florida, however I bear in mind Chattanooga.”
All through the present, Tweedy took observe of how far alongside we had been within the night. “We’re getting near the tip,” he mentioned. The viewers, sad with that, heartily booed, to which he responded, “I imply normally.”
When the lights did go down and the band waved goodbye, we knew there can be an encore. They reemerged to play 4 songs, beginning with “California Stars” from their 2001 collaboration with Billy Bragg, Mermaid Avenue. Making certain everybody that the present was lastly over this time, Tweedy introduced, “Okay that is it!” and ended with the rousing “I Received You (On the Finish of the Century)” from Being There. An acceptable selection, reinforcing the concept that the older we get, the extra we must always take inventory of how far we’ve come.
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