WILCO LIVE AT THE ESTRAGON, BOLOGNA, ITALY – 9th February 2012
A rubbish picture of Wilco on stage at the Estragon in Bologna posted just to prove I was there!
After the post-xmas January lull and the freak snow of February, this was the first concert I’ve been to in 2012 ad it set the benchmark very high.
Wilco are not a band who go through the motions. Their set list changes constantly so even if they had any greatest hits you would never count on hearing them at every show.
Great songs like Via Chicago and Shot In The Arm fared better than the newer material although Art Of Almost from their latest album, Whole Love, was one of the show’s early high points.
Most bands would have started with an up tempo tune like this but they chose to begin with long and slow acoustic ballad One Sunday Morning, the closing track from on the same disc. This self assured opening laid the foundations for a well paced two hour show which included a generous six song encore.
Jeff Tweedy is beefier than I imagined – a consequence either of middle age spread or a regular gym subscription. Wearing jeans, denim shirt and a pork pie hat he should have shed a few kg during this gig and I’m surprised he wasn’t reduced to a blob of sweat by the finish.
Needless to say, he’s the focal point of the show although lead guitarist Nels Cline does his level best to upstage him. Cline’s phenomenal solos are something to behold with his performance during Impossible Germany being especially stupefying.
“Wilco are not a chatty band” Tweedy tells us, a little superfluously since it is fully 45 minutes before he says anything to the adoring audience. Then, all he wanted to know if we were all right and if we were having a great time and upon getting the affirmative on both counts he was visibly more relaxed for the second half of the show and positively beaming with delight by the end.
Wlico is a classy live act with the rootsy charm of Tweedy’s vocals gracing a wider than average range of styles that covers no depression ‘alt.country’, commercial pop, avant-rock , motorik rhythms and good old fashioned jams.
It is ten years since the band reached a creative peak with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot but this show proved that their enthusiasm and commitment to excellence remains as strong as ever.
Here’s to another decade of Wilco love.
