Jeff, I kid. But seriously, has anyone seen this dude live? I have a little crush on the mind blowing work of the sideman for
Jeff Tweedy's pet project of the last twenty years,
Wilco. I have seen
Clapton, I have seen
Frusciante and I have seen
Van Halen...this guy tops the bill in overall playing tonality and attitude. The only person that I can think that may come close to getting tones from his amp may be Ira Kaplan of
Yo La Tengo. Another Repeater (Definition of a Repeater: Guitarists and bands that I have no problem seeing over and over again).
It's funny because because the night was summed up by just another wonderful evening cruising through downtown San Jose on bikes with some good friends. I had an idea that I wanted to write a review of Wilco's first performance in the Bay Area. My biggest concern was to either do it on my regular
Blog or this one that is specific to that "underground" scene in San Jose. My answer became apparent as I walked into the
San Jose Civic Auditorium and saw nicely framed pictures of live performances there by many of my idols;
Buddy Holly,
The Beach Boys,
Jeff Beck,
The Kinks,
The Rolling Stones,
The Yardbirds....the list just goes on. This place is a
unique San Jose shrine and should be worshiped as such. Well, last night surely didn't disappoint by the legend of Wilco. This band had been on my list of "must sees before I die" since my daughter was born. I missed their last bay area appearance with Jeff & Steve at The Mountain Winery. They described their experience as like one from another world. And these boys have seen some live music in their past. I had to go. Little did I know that they were going to play 10 minutes from my doorstep, on a Saturday Night and at a legendary auditorium that I had been waiting to visit for the first time.
The opening act was beyond proficient. One would figure that would be as natural as soft skin on a newborn with the expertise musicianship in Wilco. These boys ain't gonna be no hacks!
White Denim caught ya. I have seen a lot of mediocre openers and I am for some lame reason I am always on precaution about it. They had a jazzy little
Pat Metheny thing going on and then the main dude would explode into a
Ted Nugent raged solo. Pretty cool. My only real critique of them is that the bass tone needed to be a little fuller. I blame it on his Rickenbacker 4001. Those things rate high on extremely cool looking, however unless you are going for the Lemmy in
Motorhead sound (which is a thing of beauty), don't bring it to a chili cook off.
Then Wilco came out. They started slow then built about every song into a towering crescendo. They are the best at writing hot, catchy hooks. Then they develop a complete and total wall of wonderful tones around those hooks. Usually lighting them on fire with an incredibly insane solo from
Nels Cline like this one here:
As Steve noted about Nels, "He was like a mad professor over there." But he was quick to follow up with how good the entire band is at making the entire entire band sound so good. It is definitely a sum of the parts.
I can go on and on telling you what songs I thought were brilliant and what not. When I write one of these I always try to add a little video. Last night I had the perfect seat (Thanks Koobs!) to sit there and document so much of the evening all the while not get in the way. I sat next to this dude who, like me, was a "first timer" on the Wilco train. I'll bet he'll be seeing them again too by the way he was getting into the performance. At one time I said "look out at the crowd", everyone was just grooving along to a Wilco song.
Here's a heavy amount of Wilco footage to quench a hearty thirst. There will be more posted on at my
youtube account if you are in need of even more. And I apologize to others who are yet to see them on this tour. I would wait on the video, or maybe just watch one or two to get yourself amped up for the show ;-)
To make it align up in the Lofi San Jose category, we did end up going on down to visit Rachel at
The Caravan. We did see a performance of a band that name slips me at this time, but I did catch a little video of one of their songs. Not bad, though their setlist started getting weak halfway through. Probably just another new band in downtown San Jose.
The night began at a beer festival at the Women's Club and a cocktail at Original Joe's. Peeked at Wilco. It ended with a nice ride on down to the local Jack in the Box by the college, which was loaded with characters that time of night, for a little late night, sobering snack. Koobs was so proud to have ordered the
jumbaco all the while the dude behind the counter didn't even flinch. Brilliant marketing, Jack!
"They are the best American band we got!" -Steve Laflen on Wilco
