LIVE
WILCO
Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado, August 10
Tweedy’s steadfast sextet offer solace under smoky skies
WILCO’S “A Shot In The Arm” first appeared on Summerteeth, released way back in 1999. But the song may well be 2021’s most on-the-nose anthem, no longer evoking self-destructive drug habits but rather the Covid-19 vaccine. In an alternate universe, it might’ve felt celebratory. But with the Delta variant spreading rapidly across the US and coronavirus cases emerging even among the vaccinated, you can’t help getting a queasy feeling when Jeff Tweedy hollers, “Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm”. It’s the “maybe” that hits hardest – what if a shot in the arm just isn’t enough?
Despite the magnificence of this openair venue in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, there are other reasons to feel a little down. For more than a week, the region has been covered in a thick shroud of smoke, drifting eastward from massive wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest and turning Colorado’s usually brilliantly blue summer skies a grim grey.
And yet! For the moment, at least there are real, live bands playing real, live music for the gathered (and hopefully fully vaccinated) masses. If you had told fans of Wilco or Sleater-Kinney back in 1995, when both released their debut LPs, that in a quarter-century’s time they’d be playing 9,000-seaters together, you’d have got some funny looks. But the edges between formerly discrete underground music scenes – in this case, alt.country and riot grrrl – have been sanded away by the intervening years. Maybe it was only rock’n’roll all along? At the merch table, you could even snag a 7” featuring Wilco and Sleater-Kinney covering each other’s songs.
It’s a rather different Sleater-Kinney who open the show here, with four auxiliary musicians apparently required to replace longtime drummer Janet Weiss, who left after the fraught sessions for The Center Won’t Hold. Best, perhaps, to think of the group as an entirely new project fronted by co-founders Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein. A quite good new project, in fact, with Tucker’s urgent vocals and Brownstein’s rock-star moves – high kicks and windmills that would make Pete Townshend proud – still leading the charge. Also notable is the addition of young guitarist Fabi Reyna, founder of the female-forward guitar magazine She Shreds, who does indeed shred up a storm. Sleater-Kinney even have their own Covid-resonant tune in the churning “Down The Line” from their latest album Path Of Wellness, with its haunting lines: “It’s not the summer we were promised/It’s the summer that we deserve.”
Wilco leap from twitchy post-punk to shaggy powerpop
AL ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
Wilco, on the other hand, got their many shake-ups out of the way early. Since 2004, Tweedy has kept his group remarkably stable and, even after more than a year off the road, the sextet (Tweedy plus drummer Glenn Kotche, keyboardist Mikael Jorgenson, bassist John Stirratt, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone and guitarist Nels Cline) are in impeccable form. This is a band of virtuosos – not in the prog sense of the term but in the way they seem to have rock’s multi-layered history embedded in their collective DNA. Drawing from almost every album in their oeuvre, Wilco leap from the twitchy post-punk of “Random Name Generator” to the shaggy powerpop of “Box Full Of Letters”, from the seething electronic textures of “Art Of Almost” to a soulful “Theologians”, making even the most jarring of transitions seem effortless.
The ensemble playing is impressive throughout but if you had to pick two MVPs for the evening it would be Kotche and Cline. Having been behind the Wilco kit for more than two decades, Kotche is as comfortable amid the complex mood shifts of “Side With The Seeds” as he is on a rowdy “I’m The Man Who Loves You”, on which Tweedy steps up for a few fiery solos. Mostly, however, he cedes that honour to Cline – and why wouldn’t he? The 65-year-old guitarist seems to improve with age, his chops matched only by his imagination. At Red Rocks, Cline conjures up dizzying visions of John McLaughlin joining Little Feat, delivering show-stopping turns on “Impossible Germany” and an extended, elegiac “Ashes Of American Flags”, the band swelling sorrowfully behind his increasingly fleet-fingered runs.
Nels Cline
Glenn Kotche
Pat Sansone
Jeff Tweedy: helping the crowd dream their troubles away
AL ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
John Stirratt
In addition to the old standbys, Wilco take the opportunity to air a handful of numbers from their most recent LP, Ode To Joy, released in late 2019. “We kind of got the title wrong on that one,” Tweedy admits sheepishly, alluding to the worldwide chaos and confusion that soon followed the album’s release. But in a live setting the songs sound joyful nonetheless, with the band adding a welcome spark to the studio versions’ somewhat subtle shadings. The nervously peppy “Everyone Hides” emerges as a classic rocker for the band, jam-packed with hooks and sweetly harmonising guitar lines. It might not be a fan favourite yet but it has the potential to become one. The Lennon-esque “One And A Half Stars”, meanwhile, is fragile and lovely, as Kotche thumps out a simple beat behind Tweedy’s half-whispered vocal. It’s another lyric that now feels eerily prophetic with more than a year of lonely lockdowns behind us: “So what, I stay in bed all day/I can’t escape my domain”. But the way that Wilco brighten the corners as the song builds to a quiet climax makes the sentiment feel oddly uplifting rather than sorrowful.
Thankfully, uplifting is the dominant mood of the evening. “I tried to change this one to ‘Colorado Stars’ but I just couldn’t make it work,” Tweedy tells the crowd before “California Stars” closes the show. And as the song’s hopeful refrain echoes off Red Rocks’ towering sandstone monoliths, you can just about make out those Colorado stars through the smoky skies, if you squint. The future feels as uncertain as ever but, for a little while, Wilco help us dream our troubles away.
TYLER WILCOX
SETLIST
1 A Shot In The Arm
2 Random Name Generator
3 Side With The Seeds
4 One And A Half Stars
5 I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
6 Art Of Almost
7 If I Ever Was A Child
8 Impossible Germany
9 Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
10 Box Full Of Letters
11 Everyone Hides
12 Dawned On Me
13 Jesus, Etc
14 Theologians
15 I’m The Man Who Loves You
16 What Light
17 Heavy Metal Drummer
18 I’m Always In
19 Outta Mind (Outta Sight)
20 Ashes Of American Flags
21 California Stars