July 16 2006: Wilco, The Autumn Defense – Pines Theatre, Florence MA
Another free show, courtesy of Adam’s folkie friends. Which was a very good thing, seeing as how tickets were $40, and it was a good show and all but it was no $40 good show.
Things started off a little slow, but maybe 5 or 6 songs in they started to sound really good. Wilco’s an interesting band to me, because they’ve got so many pretty good songs but so very few that are just flat-out great. And they’ve got all these intelligent fans who think they’re geniuses, so I’m always feeling like I’m missing out, that if I listen to them just once more then maybe that one time will be the needle that breaks the camel’s back and suddenly I’ll understand. But it never happens.
Though they are fun to see play, and lots of their “pretty good” songs turn out “more than pretty good” and the few “great” songs turn out spectacular. Such as the way “I’m the Man Who Loves You” turned out last night, along with “Wishful Thinking.” Those were probably the high points of the night in my book. And really, you just can’t beat an outdoor show on a warm summer evening, no matter who it is playing.
And I realized in the middle of the show that Wilco is pretty much the exact same band as Radiohead. They’re both big bands, everyone has their little role to play, everything is meticulously arranged, there is little to no room for improvisation, and it’s as if the whole band is being run through a big compressor. I mean, seriously, if you gave Wilco a bunch of delay pedals and that thing that Jonny Greenwood likes to play, you’d have Radiohead. And I’m not sure if I enjoy that. I don’t like meticulous arrangements and I don’t like compressors. I do like improvisation. Yet I enjoy seeing Wilco play (and Radiohead, for that matter). Oh, the contradictions.
And apparently the band that was supposed to open got held up at the Canadian border so a couple of the non-Tweedy guys in Wilco opened instead as an acoustic duo. Pretty good stuff, though if I’d known at the time that they weren’t just the promoter’s friends filling in at the last minute I’d have paid a little more attention as I stood in the beer line.
Things started off a little slow, but maybe 5 or 6 songs in they started to sound really good. Wilco’s an interesting band to me, because they’ve got so many pretty good songs but so very few that are just flat-out great. And they’ve got all these intelligent fans who think they’re geniuses, so I’m always feeling like I’m missing out, that if I listen to them just once more then maybe that one time will be the needle that breaks the camel’s back and suddenly I’ll understand. But it never happens.
Though they are fun to see play, and lots of their “pretty good” songs turn out “more than pretty good” and the few “great” songs turn out spectacular. Such as the way “I’m the Man Who Loves You” turned out last night, along with “Wishful Thinking.” Those were probably the high points of the night in my book. And really, you just can’t beat an outdoor show on a warm summer evening, no matter who it is playing.
And I realized in the middle of the show that Wilco is pretty much the exact same band as Radiohead. They’re both big bands, everyone has their little role to play, everything is meticulously arranged, there is little to no room for improvisation, and it’s as if the whole band is being run through a big compressor. I mean, seriously, if you gave Wilco a bunch of delay pedals and that thing that Jonny Greenwood likes to play, you’d have Radiohead. And I’m not sure if I enjoy that. I don’t like meticulous arrangements and I don’t like compressors. I do like improvisation. Yet I enjoy seeing Wilco play (and Radiohead, for that matter). Oh, the contradictions.
And apparently the band that was supposed to open got held up at the Canadian border so a couple of the non-Tweedy guys in Wilco opened instead as an acoustic duo. Pretty good stuff, though if I’d known at the time that they weren’t just the promoter’s friends filling in at the last minute I’d have paid a little more attention as I stood in the beer line.
posted by Peter Sohriakoff | 5:59 PM
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