Daddy's Wilcolove or . . . .

or . . . (How Jeff Tweedy learned to stop worrying and bring the fucking rock). During my vacation last week I attended the Wilcos sold-out show at "The Merrill in Portland. (Portland is a town on the east coast). After what I can only describe as the bravest opening act I've ever witnessed, the band (the wilcos) took the stage . . . they gave it back some 2 and a half hours later . . . smoldering. Now, I've seen the "new" lineup during the YHF tour, but the new "New" lineup is fucking amazing. Tweedy has (wisely) left most of the guitar histrionics to Nels Cline, clearly the superior guitarist. Tweedy was in great form and perfect voice, the sound was great. At one point Tweedy joked about taking a lead-singer type of exam. The funny thing is . . . you could almost believe that he took some "front-man" courses as the usually dour Tweedy seemed to be replaced by some kind of giddy, joking, stepford-replicant of his former stage persona. Every rendition outshone their respective "studio take" save for "Spiders(kidsmoke) wich managed to be as obnoxious as the version they released on AGIB. A throwaway track like "Late Greats" was injected with enough pomp that you could swear you were listening to "The greatest lost track of all time". "King Pin" was a welcome return to their "Being There" days without sounding at all like "been there". If this show was any indication of what's in store for us with the next Wilco release . . . outasite!