is it just me?

On Saturday I went to see a Jeff Tweedy acoustic show. For those not familiar with Jeff, he is the lead singer of the band Wilco. I was somewhat shocked when I realized that the first time I saw Jeff Tweedy was no less than eight years ago this month, on my 22nd birthday. I went in to that show with little to no idea what to expect. I had never heard of Wilco, though the person that was then my roommate and is now my husband lent me some cds. He was very jealous that I was getting to go. The show was upstairs at the Middle East in Boston, and to-date is still one of the best shows I have ever seen. I was bowled over. I was in love with Jeff Tweedy and his guitar and his nice songs. But enough nostalgia.

Fast forward eight years and several states, and Jeff Tweedy was coming to Madison. We bought our tickets early, and I was excited though careful not to get too excited since I knew there was a good chance it wouldn’t be as good as last time. We showed up early, though not that early and managed to get some decent seats. This couple who reminded me of Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar asked if the seats next to us were taken. They were not. “Fantastic!” says Freddie. They set down their coats and prepared to go get a drink. “We’re heading to the bar. Can we get you guys anything?” What? Ummm….no? Weird. I mean, it was nice of him to offer, but still weird. We don’t know him. We just stood up so they could get in to the seats next to us.

So, prior to the show I had read that Tweedy would be “supported by” Glen Kotche. Glen is the drummer from Wilco, though when I read his bio I realized he was involved in several musical endeavors including being part of “an experimental rock trio” with Tweedy and some other guy, and half of an “experimental jazz duo”. That’s two “experimental” labels on one home page. To me ‘experimental’ is usually code for ‘weird’. So, I hoped that “supported by” meant Glen played the drums while Jeff Tweedy sang nice songs, and that this was not going to be some weird experimental show. So Glen comes out. By himself. This was bad sign number one. He starts playing the xylophone. Bad sign number two. He proceeds to play an entire set of bizarre percussion medleys that are part drum, but include background electronica, and ‘sounds’ like scratching, some instrument that is played by pulling a rope as well as some other weird stuff. Apparently each song represents a character in a story, according to Glen. At that point I am thinking “give me a break” when Freddie says “Love it. The premise. That’s beautiful.” Ugh.

So, for one song he actually plays the entire thing on the marimba. Once the domain of Miss America talent segments, apparently the marimba has gone experimental. Someone in the audience yelled something about John Tesh which, while unkind, was kind of funny. Glen wanted to be sure that we understood that he is much more than a drummer. He is an artist. And you know, I am sure he is, but I just wanted to here some nice songs and a little guitar. On with it already. (As a side note, during the marimba song I tried to figure out why so many people play it in pageants, and I realized it’s because you can do it with a nice look on your face. All wind instruments are out, for obvious reasons. You cannot look like Miss America playing the trumpet. Not everyone can sing and the piano is boring. Which leaves – the marimba! Plenty of opportunity to show a little flair, and you can smile the entire time.)

When Glen finally finished, I was nervous. I was thinking “is Jeff Tweedy going to go experimental on us?” We all know that Wilco sort of likes trying to do their own thing, sometimes resulting in songs people won’t like. I had no idea what was coming. So then Jeff finally comes on stage. I will say that compared to the last time I saw him he looks like shit. He’s gained weight, his hair is kind of a bad 70s cut. But guess what. His voice is still the same. And he still plays great songs. I remembered why I had fallen in love with Wilco and Jeff Tweedy. Because their lyrics are great and when someone is just standing there on stage singing the songs with nothing but a guitar you can really appreciate them. And he just stood there for an hour or so and played great songs and made people laugh. He played old songs. He even played an Uncle Tupelo song that he couldn’t remember the chords for. He made fun of the stupid people in the audience yelling (inexplicably) “WHITE SOX!!!!!!!!!!!” It was great. It made me happy.

That said, there were some things that did not make me happy. 1) Freddie (who tried hard again to buy us a drink) liked to sing along. In fact, a lot of people liked singing along. To that I say “Don’t.” I didn’t come here to listen to you sing along with Jeff Tweedy. I came here to listen to him sing all by himself. And Freddie like to sing along to Sarah Michelle. Look at her and sing. Blech. And after almost every song he would say “Love it.” Or “Beautiful.” Or “So awesome.” His commentary did not add much. 2) People in the audience yelled a lot. Between every song. And not just song names, which is tiresome but acceptable. Stupid things. And they wouldn’t give it a rest. And Jeff Tweedy thought they were annoying which made me mad because then we are all annoying by association. Stupid drunk college students. 3) The pregnant lady in front of me who really wasn’t paying attention, couldn’t sit still, and kept talking, and then spent the entire encore looking for her purse.

So for the first encore Jeff Tweedy’s son came out and played a song on the drums. That was great. Then Glen played with him and he was on his best behavior and only played normal drums. And then they left. And I wanted to leave. Because I don’t really like encores in general, and definitely not second ones. I think often the band thinks through the first encore, (when was the last time you went to a show without one?) but not the second. So we decided to go check out the view from upstairs for the final encore which consisted of one song: “Passenger Side”. It’s a great song, to be sure. BUT some jerk had been yelling for it all night and truthfully I was kind of disappointed that he got his way. But it was just the one song and then Jeff left and it was over. The end.