Wilco Catharsis Through Chaos

Author: Claire Bourne

Wilco frontman and alt-country idol Jeff Tweedy apologized mid-set for not being able to hit the high notes and prefaced the group's second encore at the Flynn Theater Friday night by joking that he and his band mates had just decided to "quit music."
If a chock-a-block early-summer tour schedule - with the likes of Sonic Youth and R.E.M. - and a critically acclaimed fourth album are any indication, Wilco will not be bowing out of the music scene any time soon.
Besides Tweedy's two gentle interjections, the band let its music speak for itself. The result was a masterpiece - an unadulterated demonstration of life falling apart and then naturally finding its way back together. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," the album that has been on the lips of so many music critics since its April 2002 release, is nothing less than a musical catharsis. The concert was that and more.
The band mixed up its set, dedicating the first half of the show to songs from "Foxtrot" before digging up some old crowd favorites from its second release, 1996's "Being There."
"I'm the Man Who Loves You" kicked off the two-hour concert with Tweedy's playful lyrics slowly degenerating into premeditated chaos.
"Jesus etc." resonated with its smooth, calming tune, and "Heavy Metal Drummer" fused jangly guitar pop with nostalgia for a long-since-passed rock-and-roll summer.
"Poor Places" filled the theater with an eerie combination of guitar melody and distorted radio transmissions, while the politically charged "War on War" garnered cheers of support from a handful of college-aged audience members.
"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" - disjointedly sublime lyrics and all - proved to be the gem of the "Foxtrot" songs performed Friday. "I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue / I'm hiding out in the big city blinking / What was I thinking when I let go of you?" Tweedy sang.
Wilco affirmed its versatility with the pop-infused "A Shot in the Arm," the only selection off 1999's "Summerteeth" on the set list. "California Stars," the bubbly sing-a-long from "Mermaid Avenue," brought most of the capacity crowd to its feet. "I'd like to dream my troubles all away / On a bed of California stars / Jump up from my starbed and make another day / Underneath my California stars," Tweedy effortlessly crooned, bolstered by audience voices.
"I Got You (At the End of the Century)" and "Monday" reached anthem proportions before Tweedy and company toned it down for open-road low-fi songs such as "Red-Eyed and Blue" and "Misunderstood."
Wilco's records suggest an intimate understanding of music as an artform and of lyrics as pure poetry. Unlike what so often happens when multidimensional music is translated from studio to stage, Wilco lost none of the enchanting, vivid turmoil that characterizes its album recordings.
The band's live performance elevated this practiced but ragged-round-the-edges sound to a new level, layering guitar upon drums upon piano upon bells upon computer-generated recordings with studied precision to produce a terrific explosion of melody and dissonance.
As Tweedy sang in "War on War," "You have to lose / you have to learn how to die / if you wanna wanna be alive." Two encores were just enough to complete the rocky and therapeutic road trip to and back from the depths of an everyman rock-and-roll existence leaving all who experienced it tattered but more alive than ever.