Maybe I'm biased because of my good seats, or because I've been listening to Wilco fairly non-stop lately, but that was easily the best set I've seen them do. I initially griped about a lack of older songs, but by the end of the night, I couldn't have been happier. True, I would've loved "Acuff Rose" (they never seem to play it in our area :mad: ), but each and every song last night was pretty much perfect.
I know a lot of purists gripe about such avant-garde influences in the band nowadays, but having both Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche in the band have really taken them to the next level live. They both know when to let loose but, more importantly, when to hold back. Neither even throw out unnecessary flourishes, but when they go off (uh, the noisy breaks in "Via Chicago"!?!?!), it's out of control. Really, even song was played with such new life last night that I'm still buzzing about it.
The entire evening was pretty charmed: very little traffic, great spot parking at the mall, excellent seats, no problems getting out of Columbia...hell, I even got a great new belt at the mall to hold up my shorts (problem with running a lot...you tend to lose weight!) for $2.09! And to top it off, Wilco just totally killed. They were so good, in fact, that I stayed through each and every encore. They were so on fire that I figured Panda Bear couldn't complete; hey, if I happened to miss a little of his set, I figured I wouldn't lose any sleep.
Speaking of which... (see the Panda Bear post)
