You know how rock fans from the “good ole days” always make you jealous when they talk about seeing great concert after great concert in the 70′s, leaving you to wonder where the memorable concerts are this day and age.  Well, Wilco is one of those bands. Do yourself a favor and check them out live, and then you can tell some punk years from now about how they should have seen this great band called Wilco in their heyday.

Wilco has the total package for a live show.  They have a huge back catalog full of great songs, a super talented front man, and an incredibly tight band complete with a lead guitar player who gives himself whiplash every show from rocking too hard.  The band is the perfect size act to see live.  They are small enough to play intimate shows where the good seats are affordable ($2 for $25 in the 10th row!), but big enough to play cool venues with top notch sound quality.

Since they aren’t promoting a new album, the band set up their website to let the ticket holders pick the songs they wanted to hear.  Either the crowd all agrees with me on Wilco’s best tunes or I was the only one who voted, as my two favorite Wilco albums; Being There and Summerteeth were heavily represented.  Lead guitarist Nels Cline brings a new dynamic to these older tracks originally recorded before his tenure in the band, and almost as if to prove something, takes the shred to another level on his songs from Sky Blue Sky.

Acoustic diddies, ballads, sonic experimentation, dueling guitars, all in a days work.  Wilco is a band of great musicians that seems to be in a great place together with a crazy good catalog of songs at their disposal.  An excellent show in a cool venue in a very fun town.

Highlights:

Pot Kettle Black

Impossible Germany

Hoodoo Voodoo (encore)

Final Note:  Wilco has an open recording policy on their concerts, and the guy two rows in front of me took full advantage of this with some rather high tech recording equipment.  The show is posted for free download here.