Well into Wilco’s second hour of boundary-pushing, post-symphonic rock and roll at ASU Gammage on Saturday, Jan. 21, Jeff Tweedy joked about how far they’ve come since “A.M.” set them on their way in 1995.
“It’s just incredible,” a grinning Tweedy told the sold-out crowd, “the growth that we’ve shown. After all these years, it’s just completely different.”
As amusing as that moment was, though, the version of “Box Full of Letters” that followed only showed how much they have grown in the 16 years since that first-album highlight hit the streets, emerging as the most adventurous pop classicists in modern rock and roll.
Wilco at ASU Grady Gammage 2012
Interview: Jeff Tweedy
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They set the tone for the night with a haunting 10-minute rendition of “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend),” the closing track on new album “The Whole Love.” The ballad evolved from an intimate opening verse with Tweedy finger-picking his acoustic guitar into a richly textured, wide-screen epic with a jazzy detour through a space-rock jam.
Then, “Art of Almost,” the opening track of “The Whole Love,” rode in on a pulsating Krautrock groove with guitarist Nels Cline dividing his time between working a table full of pedals and effects and tearing up the neck of his guitar while bursts of bright light punctuated the growing intensity of their performance, which peaked when they hit the explosive guitar jam at the end.
The upbeat pop-gone Motown vibe of “I Might” followed, the same way it does on the album. And with that, Wilco turned their attentions, four songs in, to the opening track of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” the experimental masterpiece that somehow proved their mainstream breakthrough in 2002. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” remains a highlight of the Wilco live experience, with its cacophonous crescendo and dynamic explorations having taken the template of “Misunderstood” (a track that, sadly, did not make the set list) into challenging new territory.
People love to talk about dynamics at the mention of Nirvana or the Pixies, but Wilco’s more symphonic approach to dynamics allows for far more stops along the road from loud to soft. They do the sudden, unexpected outbursts, too, as in “Via Chicago” or “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” but many of the most intriguing highlights of Saturday’s concert found the volume surging, not just leaping from one setting to another. Songs like “One Wing,” from “Wilco (The Album),” or “Art of Almost” just kept getting louder and fuller and more powerful as they went along. “Bull Black Nova,” which works the same pulsating Krautrock terrain as “Art of Almost,” ended in a massive Wall of Noise, while “Impossible Germany” really opened up as an awe-inspiring showcase for Cline and “Handshake Drugs” took flight with a crescendo that felt Major Tom achieving lift-off in “Space Oddity,” only bigger and longer and louder.
They weren’t shy about shining a spotlight on “The Whole Love,” playing nearly every song, from those already mentioned to “Black Moon” (which boasted some otherworldly lap steel from Cline), “Born Alone,” “Capitol City,” “Dawned on Me” and the title track. But they spread that love around the catalog, dipping into “Summerteeth” for several of the concert’s highlight, the Velvety throb of “I’m Always in Love” and a set-closing romp through “A Shot in the Arm” chief among them.
The encore felt more like a second set, picking up where the first set left off with another selection from “Summerteeth,” “Via Chicago,” and making its ways through such tried-and-true highlights as “California Stars” and “Heavy Metal Drummer” before signing off with “I’m the Man Who Loves You.”
And it seemed as though they planned on coming back for more after more than two hours of rock. But then, the house lights went up, and the look of disappointment on the face of their guitar tech as he stood there tuning a guitar that would be packed up without squeezing out more sparks was no doubt shared by any fan who noticed what had happened.
If the Wilco spotlight tends to alternate between Tweedy on vocals and Cline on guitar, the full ensemble playing is what ultimately matters. And every member pulled his weight and more on Saturday, from bassist John Stirratt and drummer Glenn Kotche to multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and keyboard player Mikael Jorgensen.
Tweedy didn’t speak much in the first part of the set, but when he did start talking, he was pretty entertaining. He introduced the Kinks-flavored “Being There” highlight “(Was I) In Your Dreams” with “This song is requested quite a lot on our website. So 14-16 of you are going to be very happy.” Then, at the end of the song, he joked, “That sounded more like 18 people clapping.” When the crowd responded with more cheering, Tweedy said, “I wasn’t saying that to beg for applause. I really wasn’t. It was just an observation.”
Set list
“One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)”
“Art of Almost”
“I Might”
“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”
“One Wing”
“Bull Black Nova”
“(Was I) In Your Dreams”
“Black Moon”
“Impossible Germany”
“I’ll Fight”
“Hotel Arizona”
“Jesus, Etc.”
“Born Alone”
“Capitol City”
“Handshake Drugs”
“I’m Always in Love”
“Dawned on Me”
“Hummingbird”
“A Shot in the Arm”
Encore
“Via Chicago”
“The Whole Love”
“Box Full of Letters”
“California Stars”
“Heavy Metal Drummer”
“Walken”
“I’m the Man Who Loves You”
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2012/01/22/20120122wilco-phoenix-concert-review.html#ixzz1kIuXmN20
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