this was either my 8th or 9th time seeing wilco. it was definitely one of the better times i've seen them recently. the last two i saw them were at constitution hall and meyerhoff symphony hall, and there's no question the 930 suits them better. or maybe it just suits me better.
first off, they will never match their performances from the jay bennett era. that's a plain and simple fact. when they toured on summerteeth and mermaid avenue 2 , those were just amazing shows. now they are a bunch of hired hands, a very well-oiled machine. and sorry, but those songs from AGIB just aren't good. hearing "jesus, etc."/"war on war"/"ashes of american flags" consecutively in the middle of all the new songs really drove that point home.
and wilco shows are basically two shows now. the initial set, the songs you will hear, and the encores, the songs you want to hear. "candyfloss," "new madrid," "she's a jar," etc. all told, though, i had a pretty good time. tweedy seemed to be in a good mood, nels cline is a damn good guitarist, and i managed to avoid the frat boy/yuppies. and for all the talk about headlining bands playing for only 35-50 minutes, wilco certainly isn't one of those. 27 songs, almost 2 and a half hours.
