Wilco — 16-Feb-2008 — Night Two

Night Two.

Lessons learned from night one-- if we wanted to continue to have a good vantage, we'd still have to line up early outside the Riviera. No worries, we were in great company with VC'ers and our newly-minted friends from Day One were also stomping the cold from their feet and the anticipation for what Wilco would do launched many a conversation.

Lining up a little over 2 hours ended up paying great dividends, as the club quickly filled up with a veritable sea of people shortly after the doors opened.

The show opened with Tweedy coming on-stage alone, and, armed with an acoustic guitar. At first it seemed he might open the night with a solo song, but the remainder of the band joined him and they began with a subdued Someone Else's Song. It was clear this wouldn't be a carbon copy of the previous night's set, even though there were several repeats from night one.

A surprise entrance by violin and whistling virtuoso Andrew Bird was in store for tonight as Bird joined Jeff for a whistle duet during "Red-Eyed & Blue". Bird lent his classic violin-playing skills for several songs throughout the night.

Other highlights:
Pat Sansone's rock star moves on "Walken."
Jeff's guitar shredding on "I'm the Man Who Loves You." On this song, this is *all* Jeff, as Nels takes a breather from the frenetic fret board action.
A rocking "Casino Queen" from the band's debut... which led to a perennial crowd pleaser: "Kingpin." Jeff mentioned that since we were a hometown crowd, we already knew what to do, but he still needed to remind us to scream at the top of our lungs during the call-back portion of the song. (an aside: My throat still hurts.)

My personal highlight of the evening belongs to "Dreamer in My Dreams." They've obviously rehearsed this 1997 track well, and I have a great feeling this one will be entering in the regular rotation at post-Residency shows in the coming days. Just when you think it's over...

At the shows closer, Jeff said he'd see us on Monday, and after nearly 2 1/2 hours of playing, the band exited the stage. The only problem was: we were not going anywhere. I spied Sue Tweedy in her private box doing the rock show cat call, and we simply yelled to the top of our lungs until the band came out once again. A *true* encore!

The band gave us a pair of songs to close out the night, the last an awesome rendition of "Hoodoo Voodoo" which featured Pat and Nels trading off some of their best kick-ass guitar licks a la Dueling Banjos-style which conjured up a Guitar Hero "battle" in my mind. They had given us everything and more. With the past two nights behind us now... it's difficult to guess what they'll have in store for us on Monday.

Setlist:

Someone Else's Song
Hell is Chrome
Handshake Drugs
Muzzle of Bees
Via Chicago
I'm Trying to Break Your Heart
Hotel Arizona
Shot in the Arm
Impossible Germany
Its Just That Simple - John on vox
When You Wake Up Feeling Old
Too Far Apart
Jesus Etc. w/Andrew Bird
Forget The Flowers w/ AB
Dash 7 w/ AB
Christ For President w/AB
Walken w/ horn section
Im The Man Who Loves You

-break-
The Late Greats
Heavy Metal Drummer
Red Eyed & Blue
I Got You w/ AB
A Magazine Called Sunset
Monday w/ horn section
Casino Queen
Kingpin

-encore-
ELT
Hoodoo Voodoo