INTELLI.LA

On Wednesday night, Los Angeles was treated to another fantastic sold out Wilco performance at The Greek. For those of you who haven’t been to the Greek Theatre, it’s the best venue in LA. Located in the hills of Griffith Park, it’s a picturesque outdoor space to say to least. The stage is surrounded by a gorgeous tree-lined setting and an intimate seating arrangement (in hardly feels like 6600 people). The real clincher though, is that the sound is amazing.

At any rate…The first few songs off “Sky Blue Sky” and “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, eased the crowd into the evening. In fact, so much so that just about everyone above section A was sitting. But, when they finally brought multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone out from behind the piano for a rockin’ version of “Shake It Off”, things abruptly changed pace. Incidentally, I’m going on record as saying that Pat Sansone may be one of the coolest people on the planet. Whenever he had a Telecaster in his hand, it was hard not to watch him. That said, Nels Cline has to be one of the most original guitarists out there. He combines this manic pace with beautiful jazz scales…and is a brilliant pedal-steel player to boot. The highlight of the night had to be Pat & Jeff playing this Allman Brothersesque double-lead guitar jam at the end of “Impossible Germany” while Nels soloed over it. The crowd went ballistic after that.

It was also great to hear new life breathed into “Too Far Gone” (off A.M.) and “Via Chicago”. On a personal note, I thought it was very appropriate that they played both “Via Chicago” and “California Stars.” Tweedy is clearly still a little insecure about taking his guitar off to sing “Hummingbird”. He hid in the shadows at the front of the stage for the first verse, before dancing around for the rest of the song. Other high points were The Beatle-influenced “Hate It Here”, and crowd favs, “I’m Always In Love” and “Outtamind, Outtasite”

That said, the show wasn’t without a few missteps here and there. Some of the songs just felt a little over produced with too many different intricate pieces. “Pot Kettle Black” was one such song. It lacked emotion and seemed to fall apart (in a bad way) during the choruses. For the most part though, the two-hour set was packed with cheers from the crowd. Tweedy’s banter was also witty as usual. One of the funnier exchanges ended with him telling a woman that if she “was older than 14, she wasn’t allowed to wave a lighter around during the slow songs at a concerts anymore.”

All in all, a brilliant show from a band that never disappoints live.

Cheers!

Marco