SOUNDTRACK: WILCO-Live at the Newport Folk Festival (July 29, 2017).
Every year, NPR goes to the Newport Folk Festival so we don’t have to. A little while afterwards, they post some streams of the shows (you used to be able to download them, but now it’s just a stream). Here’s a link to the Wilco set; stream it while it’s still active.
I have been really enjoying Wilco’s most recent albums, but it’s their live shows that are exceptional.
Opening with “Random Name Generator” they segue into a very string-heavy “Via Chicago” (a one-two punch of greatness that would leave me flabbergasted). The recording of this song is particularly great because you can really hear the craziness that Nels Cline adds to the noisy sections. And the strings also loom large, which I find interesting. It sounds like a full string section, but maybe its’ just synths?
Wilco have so many albums and so many songs. Most of their live shows run over two and a half hours. So this barely-over-an-hour set means excising. And yet they don’t just play a hits set. There’s quite a few songs from their latest album, Schmilco and a deep cut from Wilco (The Album). That particular song “Bull Black Nova” has a cool guitar solo back-and-forth between Cline and whoever else was on guitar at the time.
A mellow “Reservations” leads to a lengthy “Impossible Germany” with an extended guitar solo from Cline. “Misunderstood” gets a big round of applause (and a suitably chaotic middle section–a mini freakout).
Earlier, Jeff Tweedy said “I don’t feel like talking” but before “Heavy Metal Drummer he says, “I guess I feel like talking a little bit… Nah.” Then “Hope we didn’t ruin your lovely day, we didn’t mean to if we did.”
They play a fairly shambolic “I’m the Man Who Loves You” which means not that they play it sloppily but that they play it noisily–from time to time one instrument or another has a little noisy fun while everyone else keeps playing like normal.
As the set starts winding down and Tweedy starts to chat with the crowd, someone shouts something and he says
Happy birthday? Don’t bring that up. It’s nowhere near my birthday. [pause] I might never have another one. [groans from the audience] I just wanted to draw everyone’s attention back to our mortality. I thought we were having too much fun… it sucks. [pause] You guys have been heartwarming and reassuring. Every time I think that everything in the world completely sucks we get to play in front of an audience and share something with people that I know is real and I know it exists and will always exist… And there will always be more of this than whatever the fuck that is.
They play a lovely “Hummingbird” and a crowd pleasing “The Late Greats.” Tweedy tells us that “my dad says ‘life is happy and sad and it hurts,’ I wrote about 1,000 songs to say that.”
Tweedy can’t help impart some more advice for our troubled times:
Just show up. Just show up for everybody and things will be all right.
Before the final two songs, he says, “A lot of people have been yelling for this song, which is understandable.” It’s from the Billy Bragg & Wilco album of Woody Guthrie songs and it’s called “Christ for President.” It’s more true now than ever.
For the final song, Billy Bragg himself comes out (that’s what so cool about Newport Folk Festival) and they play a rousing rendition of “California Stars.”
Festivals are never quite as good as regular concerts if you really want to see one band. The sets are always shorter than you want. But this is pretty fine. And the recording quality is superb.
[READ: June 20, 2017] “The Countess’s Private Secretary”
This issue has a section of essays called “On the Job,” with essays about working written by several different authors.
Jennifer Egan was indeed the private secretary to a Countess. The Countess was a woman of some authority. One time Egan was on her way to work for her. There was some kind of fire emergency in the building and pedestrian traffic was halted. The Countess shouted out the window to the emergency crews insisting that Egan be let through. And she was.
Egan said that being the private secretary often meant “becoming” her–starting at 1PM their lives were more or less the same. It helped that Egan herself was tall and slender, Catholic and full of nervous energy. She was also short-tempered, just like the Countess. Indeed, even their handwriting matched pretty well. Although the Countess told Egan that she liked and her, Egan always knew she was just a servant. The Countess was not above telling her that garlic oozed from her pores for days after she ate it. Plus her cowboy boots were coarse, her spelling was atrocious and so on.
I Just Read About That... 