The summer of '07 sucked. For the first time in nine years, I had no summer job, I had no clue if I would be able to get a job in the fall, and even if I got a job, I didn't think I’d want it. Teaching was what I had spent the past four years building towards, and I was now professionally certified to do it, but the fact was, no one wanted me. Including me. I'd put in application after application, bemoaning the fact that no one would call back...but unconsciously I didn't want them to. The final month of student teaching was torture; I couldn't bear an entire year like that.
The only thing that got me through this turbulent period were concerts. The first of these was Wilco. The Wilco concert was a particularly effective distraction because it was in Baltimore, allowing me to take a full-on road trip. I was able to hang out with Evan Davis and Jon Hemler in Williamsburg, catch up with Kyle West’s 47 cats in Fredericksburg, and preview my future home with Ben Marzouk in Fairfax.
It was lucky I made it to the actual show, though, because that night, I got locked out of my car in DC! My cell phone was dead; I had no AAA; things were not looking good. And poor Chuck Abbott was left waiting, without a ticket, at Merriweather!
I spent the next two hours on a pay phone, signing up for AAA and waiting. They kept saying they were on their way. They weren't. It didn't help that the car was still running. At long last, at 8:30, they showed up, and I made my way to Merriweather. I thought that, since the concert started at 7:30, I'd at least be able to hear the last couple songs if I arrived by 9:15.
When I got there, I found, to my naive delight, that concerts never start when they say they're supposed to, and Wilco hadn't even come on stage. Nice!
Can They Shake It Off?
The first couple songs were either weak tracks off Sky Blue Sky ("You Are My Face" and "Shake it Off") or songs I'd never even heard of ("Via Chicago" and "A Shot in the Arm"). I've since listened to Summerteeth and enjoy "Via Chicago" and "A Shot in the Arm," but at the time, they didn't make for a satisfying beginning to my first concert.
An Upswing
The vibe of the concert began to shift during "Handshake Drugs." Tweedy meandered through the first few songs, which were basically straight melodies -- no experimentation. With "Handshake Drugs," the band started to riff in the middle of the song, and I started to grow interested.
I became more interested when they then shifted back to straight melody -- for the next four songs. These songs were four of my favorites. First came "War on War," a strangely upbeat number with the indelible line "you have to learn how to die if you wanna be alive." (Yes, the line actually is uplifting in the context of the song.) This was followed by "Sky Blue Sky," the band's warmest, fuzziest track since "Muzzle of Bees."
Next came "Impossible Germany." It's hard to make any sense of the lyrics ("Impossible Germany / Unlikely Japan / Wherever you go / Wherever you land"??), but the sound is amazingly trippy -- from the ten-second guitar twinkle at the beginning to the three-minute riff at the end.
Finally, there was "Jesus Etc." You'd think it would be played out, given its popularity, but the lyrics and intonation still resonate: "Tall buildings shake / Voices escape singing sad sad songs / Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks / Bitter meloDEEs turning your ORbit around."
On and On and On
Wilco's final song was "Hummingbird." It was a fitting ending because it was the last song Sara Rutter and I had heard them play during the Un-Formal at William and Mary.
As it turned out, though, "Hummingbird" was FAR from their last song. Because this was my first real concert, I naively believed the band when they thanked everyone for coming and announced that this was their last song. When they came back afterwards, I remembered that concerts often had encores. I thought they would play one or two more songs and be off.
Incredibly, though, they had THREE separate encores, coming back for TEN more songs. Even Springsteen can't claim that.
For most people at Merriweather that night, the fact that there were three encores (which included classics like "What Light," "The Late Greats," and "Theologians") was probably the highlight. I have been to 15+ concerts since Wilco and have never seen performers come back that many times.
For me, though, the TRIUMPH of the evening was "Spiders." For twelve minutes, I was transfixed. I loved it on the album (where you could enjoy it as your own private orchestral piece), but it was so much better live. The ceaseless piano beat, the epic guitar riff, the completely nonsensical lyrics...it was something else. Nels Cline, Jeff Tweedy, I salute you. Henry Greeley, wish you coulda been there.
Grade: A-
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