Wilco: Sunday

By Jeremy Erwin

It had been a little over a year since I last saw Wilco on stage. At that time, their critically praised but admittedly challenging A Ghost is Born record had been released days earlier. Frontman Jeff Tweedy had just finished a well publicized rehab stint and tension was the soup du jour. So on the hottest day of an already record hot Texas summer, I expected a different Wilco; a road-weary beast, battered, torn and well frayed on its last leg of promoting an album for well over year.

But the Wilco that took the stage on Sunday evening was indeed different. Cocky, charming and inexplicably boasting the best two guitar lineup in rock, the band who showed up at Zilker Park proved that it hasn’t only been on the road for the past fifteen months, but it has ruled every inch of it.

Playing for a crowd that burped dust and had the enthusiasm of a festival audience on its final day, the band didn’t really stretch out until a few songs in and guitars took center stage. ‘Handshake Drugs’ and ‘At Least That’s What You Said’ from last year’s A Ghost is Born both proved far mightier than their studio counterparts and served as launchpad for Tweedy and Nels Cline’s guitar heroics. Uncovering the rarely performed gem "Shot in the Arm" from 1998’s Summer Teeth, Wilco breezed through a set that touched on nearly every corner of its catalogue with newfound vigor and words of encouragement for its audience.

Tweedy slipped into the role of camp counselor/drill instructor when faced with a sunburned, dust covered mass of ten thousand plus, and relished every minute – coming out of his shell long enough to sling the guitar behind his back and scream James Brown style into the mic: “When you scream, put your soul into it!” and “Show some enthusiasm!”

After demanding a round of handclaps, screams and sing alongs, the band even returned the favor with a bit of new material that was “written just for you Austin” - a bit of bluesy funk that marks a departure from the bleaker side of some of its more recent material. Finishing up with the hypnotic epic "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," Wilco put a krautrock bow on an hour and half that included groveling, drama, audience participation, six string heroism and was arguably the finest set of this year’s festival.