Wilco – Live at Wharton Hall

I woke up Sunday morning anticipating the Wilco concert to come later that day. I put my iPod on and queued up the documentary Ashes of American Flags, hoping that I would hear the song which titled the film. My son Cody was anticipating his favorite song, “California Stars”. Both are tender ballads, which are pure Americana, and both are safe bets to be included in the play list for a Wilco concert.

For some reason, Wilco wasn’t in a somber mood last night. Somebody slipped the boys from Chicago some Prozac. While my son and I didn’t get to hear our respective favorites, we were hardly disappointed with the concert.

The evening started out with bad Chinese. I don’t mean a band called bad Chinese; I mean my son had the worst tofu God could ever sentence a demon to eat. Awful stuff! This isn’t a restaurant review, so I’ll move along to the concert. It was held at the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts, a large concert hall on the campus of Michigan State University.

The opening act was another Chicago based band, a quartet called Califone. A highly irreverent crew, they joked about their lack of professionalism.  They made a quip that could have made anyone with religious beliefs furious, but it was well received by the audience. They had a bit of a cult following amongst the crowd. I frankly had never heard of then until I had seen the show’s billing.

Califone had a musical style that was clearly alt-country, reminiscent of Son Volt (no small irony there), utilizing sonic distortion, experimental influences from YHF, and on occasion employed some jam band sensibilities, including almost meditative chants.  I was at a loss not knowing anything about the band’s discography and they only announced the title of one song “Our Kitten Sees Ghosts.” Their set lasted about an hour, which was just about right. They were an enjoyable lot, however I won’t be inviting them to any church potluck in the near future.

Wilco took the stage about a half-hour later. Their tour was called the “Tundra” tour, and they played off of that moniker brilliantly with a textured white background and lighting effects, which allowed them to portray the Northern Lights. They played a fanfare as they took the stage in homage to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The tour consists of mainly Canadian cities except for a three-city sweep through Duluth MN, Madison, WI and East Lansing, MI.

They opened with “Bull Black Nova,” a song from their self-titled album. This song was as powerful as a 1972 Nova with a 350 engine and a four-barrel carburetor. It was tight, forceful and dark. You can imagine a black Nova with glowing red eyes a la Christine. Three songs later, Tweedy broke into a Lennonesque rendition of  “One Wing.”

The band was very playful, exemplified by songs such as “Shot In The Arm” and “Hummingbird.” At one point during the latter, Tweedy was twirling the microphone as if he were ready to skip rope.  I’ve been to a couple of Wilco concerts before and while Tweedy is interactive with the crowd, last night took the cake. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself on stage, trading verbal jabs with louder members of the audience. Wilco performed “Jesus, Etc.,” which is a song where they let the crowd take lead vocals and that was a blast.

Wilco is known for a segment on their web page where they take requests and will play one or two of the songs requested by the fans attending the venue. Last night’s winners were “Should’ve Been In Love” and “Misunderstood.” They took a request from the crowd to play “Heavy Metal Drummer,” which was probably a part of their play set, but you wouldn’t have known it.

Tweedy wasn’t the only one who was on last night. Bassist John Stirratt did the lead vocals on “It’s Just That Simple,” on which he did a beautiful job. Nels Cline further established himself as a guitar god not just with his work on “Impossible Germany,” “Walken,” and “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” on which he was brilliant, but throughout the concert his masterfulness of the guitar shone. It is no wonder this gentleman has neck problems given the way he thrashes his body as he plays. Drummer Glen Kotche is an animal! He stood atop his drum set at the beginning of “I’m The Man Who Loves You” and was a beast on “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” and “Misunderstood.”  Multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone killed it on guitar in “When You’re Gone.”

Jeff Tweedy waxed philosophically as well. During one song, he exhorted the crowd to clap along. He noted that some in the audience were not clapping along and he called those of us who weren’t clapping with this bit of wisdom “Don’t put aside happiness. It can come in something as simple as handclapping at a stupid rock concert.”  I tell you, someone replaced the ‘No Depression’ stuff with happy juice last night!

There’s so much more I could tell you about the concert. There were some magnificent blues riffs from Nels in “Walken,” the couple to my left eating magic mushrooms, my son getting pulled aside and nearly denied entry because of his camera case (he was my photographer and I had to handle the situation), but the most awesome thing I could tell you is about the closing song of the concert, “Hoodoo Voodoo,” where Nels and Pat had a lead guitar duel. Fricking amazing! Smoke was pouring off of their strings! I thought for sure Nels was having a seizure and was in danger of having a stroke, and “quiet” Pat Sansone….well, that boy can flat out play guitar! It was just some awesome stuff.

by Bruce Porter

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Photos by Cody Porter 2/21/10 at Wharton Hall (East Lansing, MI)