Wilco’s thirty-five song, near three hour long march was otherworldly last night in “Con-Cord” (Jeff Tweedy butchered it…) New Hampshire. It may have been the best Wilco show I’ve seen among the 8-10 I’ve attended. Um, on second thought, one I attended in 1995 is probably tops, given I stood about 10 feet from Boston’s Paradise stage, and the brand new band had to dip into the Tweedy Uncle Tupelo catalog to play a whole show. My date was a trooper, but with about 14 stress balls in the air, she might have been who Tweedy was addressing when he said, “Concord, have we worn you out?” By song thirty or so she was on the ropes, but wrote this morning: “The band really is good, I enjoyed both the hard guitars and the acoustic sounds, everything except for when the spaceship landed.” (For a sample of the spaceship, you can sample some of the bands sonic seismology beginning at the 5:15 mark of “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” below. )
Walking out of the beautiful Capitol Theatre into the warm July night, we were just an hour and a half and a near exhaustion of petrol away from home. “Maybe next time I’ll know more Wilco…” Yeah, I think so. You can start with my favorites in this set list, courtesy of Wilco fan site, Via Chicago.
I’d like to write more tonight, but Wilco wore me out…
“The Price Is Right” theme music intro
Wilco (the song)
Ashes of American Flags
Bull Black Nova
You Are My Face
A Shot in the Arm
At Least That’s What You Said
Handshake Drugs
I’ll Fight
California Stars
Poor Places

acoustic set
Spiders (Kidsmoke)
Why Would You Wanna Live
Cars Can’t Escape
Hesitating Beauty
War on War
Laminated Cat

back to electric
Airline To Heaven
Summer teeth
Misunderstood
Can’t Stand It
Jesus, etc. (crowd singalong)
Heavy Metal Drummer
Hate It Here
Walken
In The Street [Big Star]

encore
Hoodoo Voodoo
I’m A Wheel