2008 Woodie Awards
Wilco brings Pageant to artistic life in a delectable performance
Kate Kovarik
Issue date: 3/23/06 Section: Entertainment
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Going to a Wilco concert at the Pageant is a bit like going on a tour in an art museum.
Paintings you have only read about or seen in history books are all of sudden at your fingertips in a small set of outspread ballrooms that maze into smaller rooms of priceless pieces. Where do you look first? The artwork does not fit one category, and so instead, the rooms organize the art by time or artist.
Wilco has been monikered "the alternative-country pioneer," but that name gives no justice to its countless variables, which the band never makes independent or dependent. Which of the five types of guitars is frontman Jeff Tweedy strumming, or is he strumming at all? Are the other five members of the band experimenting with drums or a sound board or jazzmaster or piano or some percussion instrument or windmill arm guitar move? Wilco fuses country, blues and rock 'n' roll and tours the genres alongside its fans in a museum of music, reflecting old and new themes.
On Sunday, Wilco returned to the Pageant for the first time in four years, and with the intimate, interactive venue, fans could see the clear, detailed strokes of artwork they had previously only witnessed second-hand.
Some of the artwork was not what fans expected. Tweedy, for example, had a few extra inches of locks dangling from under his chin and nose. Sporting the scraggly look of a troll, Tweedy announced to fans the "stench of air" the band brought from their performance from night before in Arkansas.
Tweedy greeted his fans with a rhythmic clap in preparation for the optimistic folk song "Airline to Heaven," taken from the album Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II. The album's lyrics were taken directly from a box of song lyrics written by legendary folk musician Woody Guthrie. Billy Bragg, a British musician, originally envisioned adding melodies to the Guthrie's words and noticed in the margins Guthrie's intention for his songs: "supersonic boogie," said Bragg in a National Public Radio interview.
Paintings you have only read about or seen in history books are all of sudden at your fingertips in a small set of outspread ballrooms that maze into smaller rooms of priceless pieces. Where do you look first? The artwork does not fit one category, and so instead, the rooms organize the art by time or artist.
Wilco has been monikered "the alternative-country pioneer," but that name gives no justice to its countless variables, which the band never makes independent or dependent. Which of the five types of guitars is frontman Jeff Tweedy strumming, or is he strumming at all? Are the other five members of the band experimenting with drums or a sound board or jazzmaster or piano or some percussion instrument or windmill arm guitar move? Wilco fuses country, blues and rock 'n' roll and tours the genres alongside its fans in a museum of music, reflecting old and new themes.
On Sunday, Wilco returned to the Pageant for the first time in four years, and with the intimate, interactive venue, fans could see the clear, detailed strokes of artwork they had previously only witnessed second-hand.
Some of the artwork was not what fans expected. Tweedy, for example, had a few extra inches of locks dangling from under his chin and nose. Sporting the scraggly look of a troll, Tweedy announced to fans the "stench of air" the band brought from their performance from night before in Arkansas.
Tweedy greeted his fans with a rhythmic clap in preparation for the optimistic folk song "Airline to Heaven," taken from the album Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II. The album's lyrics were taken directly from a box of song lyrics written by legendary folk musician Woody Guthrie. Billy Bragg, a British musician, originally envisioned adding melodies to the Guthrie's words and noticed in the margins Guthrie's intention for his songs: "supersonic boogie," said Bragg in a National Public Radio interview.