A Wilco Show Review From A Guy Who Know's D*@k About Wilco

It probably goes without saying that I have never claimed to be a fan of Wilco. The day of their show at the Mershon Center, myself and my resident 'old school' Wilco-fan of a girlfriend, collectively forgot about the show. Guess it just goes to show you how much of a 'blip' on the radar a live Wilco show makes in our world.  With all this being said, this is where I say, "Wilco is one of the worst bands I have ever heard" or "How can anyone listen to this kind of crap?!" Although I am not a fan of 'this type' of music, I was intrigued for many reasons to go to a Wilco show. What kind of people go? What do people do at a Wilco show? What is the proper form of dress? Mind you, my only knowledge of shows of this caliber are of the funk and hiphop variety. Sure I have ventured to the occasional metal show, but nothing of this size and sophistication.

 

When my girlfriend handed me my tickets and it said that No Elevators were opening for Wilco, I instantly thought, "Wow this could be something worth standing in the lobby for until their set is completely finished!" The only reference point I had for No Elevators was a friend's boyfriend endorsing them in the worst possible way [in my world it least] with the quote "I heard this one song on NPR...it was okay." If there is anything that will send chills up my spine its the, I-heard-this-song-on-NPR recommendation. The funny thing is, I hear the occasional good song on NPR all the time, but I couldn't tell you why ... whenever I get a recommendation as a result of someone hearing them on NPR; I can't find the cyanide pill fast enough.

A Spastic Man, A Woman With No Ear For A Tune And Broken Drum Sticks = No Elevators

So No Elevators was bad. I mean, bad in the sense that I would pay to see them not sing. Be that as it may, they had a good energy about them. They were extra jokey and seem to be enjoying playing/singing their bad music. At this point, I would like to note that the sound quality was not that great. At least where we were sitting, the vocals of the musicians were muddled and you couldn't quite make out words clearly. This further astounded me to see with every song about, what I assume to be love lost over various art projects in college, the audience cheered louder and with increasing vigor.  The drummer seemed to be all about hitting the drums as hard as possible, which he was technically good at, but a little advice: If you break 6 drumsticks within your 45 minute set, you are not rocking that hard ... you just need to learn how to play the drums better. Ten songs and No Elevators decided to go psychedelic-seizure on us, recording their shrieking vocals for an almost techno-vibe looped playback. My eardrums thank you. I didn't need those valuable hearing cells anyway.

 

Allow me to get semi-off topic, before you start flaming you should know, that I would like to admit wrong.  I'm sure there are going to be tons of people who take issue with my view of No Elevators and Wilco and that is your deal. But I would like to apologize, for I thought the only crowd who would be attending this show would be mid-to-late twenty somethings who have a knack for matching flannel with their faux-Salem sunglasses. Furthermore, I thought the only older people I would see would be those around their 40's who are still trying to stay in-touch with the college radio community. Boy was I partially wrong! There were a lot of, how do I say this...'people of wealth' in the crowd. Some gave off the impression that they may have gotten into Wilco from watching one of the various romantic comedies their songs have been in the trailers of.

 

The youngsters around my demographic seem to be very ... well ... vanilla. You get the occasional, "Yeah, that guy is either in a band or thinking about being in one" attendee, but for the most part, the suburbs and country were represented well at this Wilco show. Speaking of vanilla, no matter how hard my girlfriend scanned the room, she could not find another black person I could talk about Dave Chappelle with [or even Master P]; the best we could do was a fellow Indian man who I subsequently gave the 'Black Power Fist' to. I'm not really doing the crowd description justice, so let me sum it up with the attendees who were a row ahead of us.  The male in the couple to our left decided to take out his Palm Pre and pull up Wilco on Wikipedia. He then began looking up song lyrics in which he showed his girlfriend [I think someone is due for a little slap and tickle later]. The couple to our right, possible two gay men, one had an oboe and semi-sophisticated audio recording equipment. While one man [literally] triangulated sound for the best possible quality [I feel just as nerdy for knowing what he was doing] recording for his eventual topic-starting "I got this super high quality recording of this live Wilco show" audio file; his special man-friend pulled out his iPhone to check his, what I can only assume, Wilco tweets.

On to Wilco. Finally the show my girlfriend has been waiting years to see and unfortunately pay $70 [for herself and me] to witness. They start off with a happy tune from their new album [so I am informed by my lady], I couldn't really hear the words because the guy on one of the electric guitars was always having a 'guitar solo' throughout the entire set [it was the song were it sounds like they are singing their own name, "Wilco?"].  His legs were skinny...or maybe it was just his pants [probably both], but he seemed to like moving his guitar to-and-fro in front of the amplified speaker.  His moog/keyboard playing buddy behind him upped the ante a couple songs later. When at the apex of whatever "my-girlfriend-dumped-me" inspired song was apparently the perfect time to bring out a pillow, no larger than the female hand, was then used to recklessly to play whatever awful noise was being projected out of a perfectly good instrument.

 

We left seven songs into the Wilco set. The sound was unbearable, and I am almost absolutely sure the Mershon sound department was not to blame. You did what you could guys/gals, but you can not put syrup on poop and call it pancakes.  Let me use this moment to plug Mack's Pillow Soft Earplugs. It was because of these earplugs that we were able to hear Wilco's folksy tunes clearer than most people in that auditorium.  It is unfortunate that none of those folksy tunes were worth listening to in the first place.

Sorry about the quality, but you try getting a shot of a man checking his Wilco Tweets while his manfriend triangulates sound for illegal recording purposes