Four laptops and more guitars
WILCO
Rock City
Frontman Jeff Tweedy is anxious, or pretending to be.
"Did that sound all right?" he asks, gesturing to the pile of kit behind him. "We just picked these up off the streets. We're still figuring out how to work them."
If that's so, Wilco must walk some very expensive streets.
This was a four-laptop gig: one on stage by the keyboards, three back in the sound booth to control tasteful, if sometimes obvious, projected visuals. (A great, joyously received version of the sweet Hummingbird gets the inevitable nature images.)
Wilco used to be an alt-country band, straightforward enough to back Billy Bragg in recording the lost lyrics of folk legend Woody Guthrie. But since their album before last, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, they have become a more complicated proposition, rich with electronics and noise.
Last night's show leant heavily on this newer material: they opened with the delicately spooky Hell is Chrome, one of the most memorable tracks on new album A Ghost is Born, taking in almost all the rest of it over the night.
It's still guitars, however -- up to three at a time, swapped frequently -- that provide the dominant note. Songs often disappear into a swirl of feedback or, as with Spiders, a long, loud instrumental workout.
I was wondering how some of their ambitious material would come across on stage -- and they are equipped to do every bleep. But the shift from electronics only makes them more accessible. Live, they sound less like a shortwave radio being detuned, and more like a rock band.
Rock City
Frontman Jeff Tweedy is anxious, or pretending to be.
"Did that sound all right?" he asks, gesturing to the pile of kit behind him. "We just picked these up off the streets. We're still figuring out how to work them."
If that's so, Wilco must walk some very expensive streets.
This was a four-laptop gig: one on stage by the keyboards, three back in the sound booth to control tasteful, if sometimes obvious, projected visuals. (A great, joyously received version of the sweet Hummingbird gets the inevitable nature images.)
Wilco used to be an alt-country band, straightforward enough to back Billy Bragg in recording the lost lyrics of folk legend Woody Guthrie. But since their album before last, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, they have become a more complicated proposition, rich with electronics and noise.
Last night's show leant heavily on this newer material: they opened with the delicately spooky Hell is Chrome, one of the most memorable tracks on new album A Ghost is Born, taking in almost all the rest of it over the night.
It's still guitars, however -- up to three at a time, swapped frequently -- that provide the dominant note. Songs often disappear into a swirl of feedback or, as with Spiders, a long, loud instrumental workout.
I was wondering how some of their ambitious material would come across on stage -- and they are equipped to do every bleep. But the shift from electronics only makes them more accessible. Live, they sound less like a shortwave radio being detuned, and more like a rock band.
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