Jeff Tweedy will love you, baby
The most intimate, large-scale musical moment I've ever experienced came late last night at Jeff Tweedy's solo show at the Lincoln Theatre.
After he opened with the four Wilco songs I'm most likely to sing alone on broken nights and revivalist mornings… after a gorgeously minimal harmonica on his poem to Chicago, after the song that always carries me back a decade, after my favorite of the songs I heard Mavis sing at the Tiny Desk, after freakin' Pieholden Suite, after a few mid-song flubs (on Mountain Bed, "it only has nine verses, you'd think I could do this") revealed his solitary, amused position on stage in a way that could be embraced, after he swaggered and stood to his full tallness to deliver I'm the Man Who Loves You with all the directness the song can absorb, after Stirratt and Sansone of Wilco and opener band Autumn Defense joined him on stage for a quiet but thrillingly expansive encore of At My Window, Sad and Lonely, after all of the Autumn Defense joined them in a heady, lit swing back to old alt-countrydom with Passenger Side and a near-rock, love-junky California Stars, the Lincoln stage emptied but for one and darkened. Tweedy came to the edge of the wood and without his mic or an amplifier sang Acuff-Rose, and the room held its breath.
Early in the morning, sometimes late at night,
Sometimes I get the feeling that everything's alright.
Early in the evening, sometimes in the day,
Sometimes I get the feeling everything's okay.
December 8th, 2010 at 11:02 AM
I am so sorry that I missed this that I want to cry.
December 11th, 2010 at 9:45 PM
Jeff Tweedy will love you too, Steve! There will be more solo tours, and even better, there will be more Steve.
December 25th, 2010 at 9:21 PM
[...] he came to town, I couldn't resist the Tweedy-as-eagle poster, and then in the Wilco store, I was a sucker for a green T-shirt. Buying that much earned me a free [...]
January 11th, 2011 at 9:47 PM
[...] Wilco is now streaming full audio from the show Carlos and I saw. [...]