"Did you bring any indie rock cheese?"
Ok, now it seems that good gigs are more like London buses - you wait ages for one and then ... This is just as well really since it takes my mind off a certain low-key al fresco event taking place on some farm in the UK this weekend. And without much further ado, here we go again with the hyperbole and hyperventilation...
This time it's Wilco - the kind of band who are, if you think hard about it, really special. Jason and I decided to go at the last minute because he is obsessed with My Morning Jacket who were opening (and very good they were too). We had talked ourselves out of going a few weeks earlier because it was a sit-down show in some sort of outdoor amphitheatre which looked vast on the (evil)ticketmaster seating plan. So we were pretty chuffed to get there and discover that it was actually fairly small and in this beautiful wooded hillside, surrounded by Christmas trees and fairies and stuff... It also soon became clear that there wasn't going to be much sitting down involved. And as an added bonus, not only were our seats inexplicably close to the front, they were also just behind some guy from MMJ so Jason got to have a little fanboy schmooze afterwards.
But onto more important things, like how much Wilco rocked. Or, firstly, how adorable Jeff Tweedy is. I have only recently realized this after watching the DVD and seeing that bit where his kid is having him guess the tune of "Heavy Metal Drummer." And seeing him sing "Kicking Television" on Austin City Limits, where he screeches "STOP SHOPPING!!! STOP BUYING STUFF!!!" That, my friends, is genius. As was the point last night when he told the crowd that they were going for a sort of picnic vibe and asked, "did you bring any cheese? Did you bring any indie rock cheese?" - at which moment I decided that this was the greatest combination of words I'd heard all month. (Incidentally, coming a close second was Molly announcing at the allied media conference in Bowling Green last weekend that she "buys far too much soda to be Independent For Life" - the latter having been the righteous slogan on the conference wristbands. Anyway...) Do I really need to explain how much Wilco rocked? Oh, but I want to.
They played most of everything off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born which suited me fine. The crazy jam sessions were the best parts - yes, even the cock-rockin' guitar solo battle that closed the show. "Jesus etc." brought a little tear to my eye. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" was particularly splendid, what with us being in Michigan and all. (To make another digression - Michigan is rapidly becoming one of the favourite states that I've visited so far. I love the way that it suddenly starts becoming so rural once you get past Detroit. And Detroit is awesome too if you like crumbly old industrial buildings, which I do. While we were driving back from the show we somehow took a wrong turn off 75 and ended up downtown amongst all the huge dark buildings. It takes a special lack of concentration to get lost when all you have to do is follow one road all the way home. We'd been singing along to the guitar parts to "At Least That's What You Said" too loudly...) Ah yes, it had been the kind of show that fills your head and makes you spend all of the next day listening to old albums. Which is what I'm off to do right now...
This time it's Wilco - the kind of band who are, if you think hard about it, really special. Jason and I decided to go at the last minute because he is obsessed with My Morning Jacket who were opening (and very good they were too). We had talked ourselves out of going a few weeks earlier because it was a sit-down show in some sort of outdoor amphitheatre which looked vast on the (evil)ticketmaster seating plan. So we were pretty chuffed to get there and discover that it was actually fairly small and in this beautiful wooded hillside, surrounded by Christmas trees and fairies and stuff... It also soon became clear that there wasn't going to be much sitting down involved. And as an added bonus, not only were our seats inexplicably close to the front, they were also just behind some guy from MMJ so Jason got to have a little fanboy schmooze afterwards.
But onto more important things, like how much Wilco rocked. Or, firstly, how adorable Jeff Tweedy is. I have only recently realized this after watching the DVD and seeing that bit where his kid is having him guess the tune of "Heavy Metal Drummer." And seeing him sing "Kicking Television" on Austin City Limits, where he screeches "STOP SHOPPING!!! STOP BUYING STUFF!!!" That, my friends, is genius. As was the point last night when he told the crowd that they were going for a sort of picnic vibe and asked, "did you bring any cheese? Did you bring any indie rock cheese?" - at which moment I decided that this was the greatest combination of words I'd heard all month. (Incidentally, coming a close second was Molly announcing at the allied media conference in Bowling Green last weekend that she "buys far too much soda to be Independent For Life" - the latter having been the righteous slogan on the conference wristbands. Anyway...) Do I really need to explain how much Wilco rocked? Oh, but I want to.
They played most of everything off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born which suited me fine. The crazy jam sessions were the best parts - yes, even the cock-rockin' guitar solo battle that closed the show. "Jesus etc." brought a little tear to my eye. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" was particularly splendid, what with us being in Michigan and all. (To make another digression - Michigan is rapidly becoming one of the favourite states that I've visited so far. I love the way that it suddenly starts becoming so rural once you get past Detroit. And Detroit is awesome too if you like crumbly old industrial buildings, which I do. While we were driving back from the show we somehow took a wrong turn off 75 and ended up downtown amongst all the huge dark buildings. It takes a special lack of concentration to get lost when all you have to do is follow one road all the way home. We'd been singing along to the guitar parts to "At Least That's What You Said" too loudly...) Ah yes, it had been the kind of show that fills your head and makes you spend all of the next day listening to old albums. Which is what I'm off to do right now...
posted by Jen at 1:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home