I certainly didn't know what to expect when I set out to see Jeff Tweedy at the James K. Polk Theater last night. I do consider myself to be a Wilco fan - not as rabid as a few that I know, probably due to the fact that I was rather late to the game (I really only started listening to them about three years ago), but I have seen them several times, I definitely picked up the rest of their catalog once I was converted, and over the last few years some of their songs have really come to mean a lot to me, personally. I'm still kicking myself a little for giving up my ticket to last year's Ryman show (Tweedy even remarked last night that it was one of his favorite shows, ever), so I'm glad I got super last-minute tickets to see Tweedy solo (excellent tickets, I should add - thank you thank you, TMM). I just didn't know what to expect - what the singer would sound like without the rest of the band, what seeing a show in the Polk Theater would be like (it's part of the TPAC, and it's absolutely a "theater," in a feels-like-you're-at-the-symphony kind of way), what opener Glenn Kotche's solo percussion performance would be like, etc.
And it's always amazing when you walk into something really not having expectations because you're not sure what they should be, and then being alternately and sometimes simultaneously mesmerized, charmed, touched, amused, and thoroughly entertained. I know it's only January, but I feel like last night's show is going to be a bit hard to beat when it comes down to the end-of-2007 best-of list I'll be making in 11+ months.
Glenn Kotche started the evening off, and I won't get into his performance here because it deserves a post of its own. I will say that it was absolutely phenomenal, and I will be picking up his solo stuff and playing it for my percussion-loving mother. More on him later.
By the time Kotche wrapped up his set, the audience had a pretty good grasp of the theater's acoustics, which were phenomenal, being a proper theater and all, but also a bit horrifyingly intimate for a room with a seated capacity of 1,075. Basically, sitting in the third row, I could hear someone in the back of the balcony when they cleared their throat. That made the quieter parts of Kotche's set hold-your-breath quiet in the audience, and the breaks in between songs were borderline uncomfortable once the applause died down and it was literally dead silent in the room. That silence made me a bit nervous about Tweedy's performance (I kept thinking about that awkward Starlight Mints show where it was silent between songs, and that whole Ray LaMontagne debacle at the Ryman where it wasn't silent), but as it turned out the singer kept things from being uncomfortable, or at least turned that discomfort to his advantage.
Before I get into the show, here is the setlist, thanks to Via Chicago:
Spiders (Kidsmoke)
Radio King
Be Patient With Me (new song?)
One By One
Bob Dylan's Beard
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Jesus, Etc.
A Shot In the Arm
Ruling Class
ELT
She's A Jar
(Was I) In Your Dreamsencore:
Theologians
Sky Blue Sky (with Glenn Kotche)
I'm the Man Who Loves You (with Glenn Kotche)encore 2:
Heavy Metal Drummer (with Glenn Kotche)
Gun
Opening with "Spiders" was an excellent way to put a smile on my face from the start - the track, from A Ghost Is Born, directly led to me becoming a Wilco fan. But the real tone of the show was set when Tweedy wrapped up his first song and addressed the drunken super-fan who was calling out his request from the balcony (here the aforementioned acoustics came into play, it was also clearly audible when he yelled it during "Spiders"). Drawing lots of chuckles from the crowd, Tweedy tried to draw the superfan into an agreement - the singer would play the song if the dude would promise to never call out a request during another similarly fragile solo performer's actual singing - but then said he didn't want to play it anyway, laughed, and called himself a dick for the first of many times during the performance. But despite that whole conversation, he launched into the requested "Radio King" a moment later, and we all set off on a bizarrely mixed evening of gorgeously-performed acoustic songs interspersed with increasingly entertaining chunks of chattiness that sometimes lasted as long as the songs did.
I think a lot of people have been moaning today about the "crowd noise" during the show, but in reality it wasn't disrespectful to Tweedy - in fact everyone was as quiet as can be during the actual singing, and even the singing along was kept to a tentative minimum because it carried so well in the hushed theater. And in between songs Tweedy was just talkative as can be, not because the audience was speaking up, but because he was engaging the crowd - asking what song should immediately follow a discussion of his 7 year-old son's impressive Mexican defecation, starting up a Q&A at one point, and once he deemed we had completely ruined the "classy" atmosphere of the room, he introduced a game called "think of the bowel movement that inspired the band name," which led to a bit of pandemonium and more than a few fits of juvenile giggles. He let the audience choose a few songs (off his "set list" - really a list of all the songs he knows with the ones he doesn't want to play crossed off), and although things got a bit out of hand when we sang happy birthday to someone's son, and then some kid wanted Tweedy to call his sister (which he politely declined as a bit "above and beyond"), generally everyone seemed to enjoy how interactive the show had become, although I'm sure we all would have loved to hear him sing about twenty more songs.
I could go on and on and on (and appear to have done a bit of that already), but to start wrapping things up I'll say that the show was amazing - both because it was so strangely funny and interactive, and because every time the room got quiet again and he sang, my heart just about stopped. I think the humor may have detracted a little bit from how completely gorgeous the stripped-down, acoustic versions of the songs were, but it was actually probably a good balance and kept things from being too serious - I would sit transfixed for the duration of each song and it took a little light humor to break me out of my musical swoon every time the applause ended. And sometimes it's best to not take things too seriously, even if they deserve it.
One extra tidbit of information - during the Q&A last night we were the first to learn more about the upcoming Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky, due out on May 15. We were also treated to the excellent title track, performed by both Tweedy and Kotche. Then we were all laughing again minutes later when Tweedy turned the mic to face Kotche as he sang "I'm the Man Who Loves You" directly to the drummer.
Okay really, I could go on about this forever. Nashville Cream, Stereogum, and Pitchfork all have a little bit up about the show or Sky Blue Sky as well. Tour dates can be found here. And here are two of the (many many) songs that sounded amazing last night:
"(Was I) In Your Dreams" (from Being There)
"She's a Jar" (from Summerteeth)
