When I heard a pre-release copy of Wilco’s latest album Sky Blue Sky I was underwhelmed, disappointed, and somewhat relieved, at the same time, happy that they had finally released a pretty mediocre album and I that I could stop following what had been an ever-changing and fascinating trajectory in the ten years since I’d become interested in them. Fortunately for me, I was dead wrong, and after a eureka moment listening to the entire album on the sound system at Largo, of all places, waiting for the evening’s entertainment to come on, I began to come around to the album. It’s now an eminently listenable, wonderfully rewarding record, and last night, we got to see the band at the Greek Theater, at yet another stop on their seemingly endless tour.



I was still in line, desperate for one of the sweet show posters that were in limited quantities, when they started their first song, but I made it back to our seats in the second row – wowza! – before long. They sounded great, and I was really excited to hear the new songs live, as their music is always well served by live performance. We had seen them a few times in the post-Nels Cline era, but not yet playing songs from an album which he had a hand in creating, so Wilco last night was a different animal altogether. It was a great to be able to see Nels’ fingers on his guitar, and he did some pretty amazing stuff, real blistering guitar solos which I normally might fear as they veered into jam-land, but the arrangements kept returning to the chorus at just the right time. It’s funny how far away songs from “Summerteeth” seem now, but I can still remember the feeling of that being a brand-new album.

They sampled songs from all of their albums, but concentrated on the new material, highlighted by “Walken,” “Side with the Seeds,” and “Impossible Germany.” They finished with a decent-sized encore, longer than we thought it would be, including “California Stars,” which Jeff called a “no-brainer,” though they apparently left it off the setlist the last two times they played in the state. Jeff ended the show by carrying his son Sam out on stage for a quick “goodnight,” and they were off the stage just before their 10:30 curfew.