The Smarterer State

Last night, during the first of Wilco’s two Melbourne shows, their frontman Jeff Tweedy joked that since each member of the band loves what they do so much, they don’t really need a crowd. Still reeling from the full aural and visual onslaught of this unbelievable band, I think there’s a lot of truth in what Mr Tweedy said. There’s no easy way of describing last night’s show, let alone attempting to do it justice. What really hit me was the sheer brilliance of the band as a whole. Often when I’m at a gig, I’ll tend to focus on one or two of the people on stage. Last night though, each guy up on stage was mesmerising, and although the term “tight” gets bandied about a lot, Wilco were.

The main set was littered with a mix of both old and new tunes, some from their not-yet-released most recent album (even though, as Jeff Tweedy commented, some people have already got it anyway…). Needless to say, the older material, like “War On War” (yay!), “I’m The Man Who Loves You”, “Heavy Metal Drummer”, "Hummingbird", “Shot In The Arm” and the gorgeous “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” got the warmest receptions. Slightly off the topic, I remember seeing Mercury Rev as a support a couple of years ago, and the two people sitting behind us were massive fans who had probably come to see them rather than the main act. At the end of their set, these two stood up and called out, “Thank you!” Last night, I got the feeling that I was surrounded by a similar kind of adoration.


The main set was punctuated by many short bursts of chatter from Jeff Tweedy, who is engaging, wry and razor sharp – particularly when responding to any forms of ruckus from amongst the crowd. I just wish I had taken notes. But here’s an example anyway:

Guy In Crowd: I can’t hear the bass!
Tweedy: Well, maybe from where you’re sitting you can only hear the high stuff? You should come down here where I am, it sounds awesome!

Some time later…
Guy In Crowd: I can hear the bass now!
Tweedy: Yeah, thanks for the update!

Even though it only felt like ten minutes, the band played for a very generous two hours, sparing nothing in terms of their enthusiasm (I’ve never seen the maracas used with such gusto) or energy. I was thinking about it late last night, and Wilco really do demonstrate exactly how live music should sound. Listening to them was like playing a piano and leaving the pedal down so that the instrument just “fills up with sound”, as my teacher used to say.

The band finished off the second encore with an epic version of “Spiders”, and at the time, it was difficult to picture the show ending any other way. But the true highlight was yet to come, with Jeff Tweedy coming back on stage with acoustic guitar in hand. Standing alone in front of the microphones and unamplified, he went on to sing one last song for the crowd by himself – unfortunately I don’t actually know what it was called. All I can say is that if you’d walked into the theatre at that moment and seen nothing that had gone before, you still would have gotten your money’s worth. Jeff’s voice is beautiful anyway, but on this particular number, you really ached listening to him. I say this sheepishly, but there’s something great about being moved to tears at a gig. After all, you wouldn’t be there if the music didn’t move you in the first place. And I guess in this day and age, with all the other crazy things that are going on in the world, it’s nice to have that as a form of escapism.