Concert in Murcia
Jeff Tweddy and his crew confirm their status as an essential band in Murcia with a superb concert from start to finish
Whether in noise or in silence. In the soft touch of an acoustic guitar or in the electric explosion. In the unmistakable sound of the most characteristic American rock or in the aroma of the best pop. In the intimacy of a country folk whisper or in the united chant of the tormented hymns of collective storms. In the glorious past of a career that reached its absolute climax with ‘Being there’, ‘Summerteeth’, ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ and ‘A ghost is born’ or in the delicacy of ‘Sky blue sky’. In the enjoyable imperfection of ‘The whole love’, ‘Ode to joy’ and ‘Wilco (The album)’ or in the return to the porch root, chewed tobacco and toast in the barn of the magnificent ‘Cruel country’. The origin of the postcards does not matter, any place looks like Shangri-La if the traces of Wilco inhabit its land. And the Murcia Bullring, far from being an exception, became last Saturday night an excellent practical demonstration of this theory.
wilco
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When
Saturday, Bullring (Murcia) -
Qualification
With honors
With the happy recovery of that guitarist from another world named Nels Cline after his absence from the first concerts of this Spanish tour due to his positive for Covid as the first big news of the evening, the band led by Jeff Tweedy, one of the essential composers of recent decades, offered a pluperfect sound concert and a dream repertoire. A total of 25 songs in just two hours where the Chicago line-up settled into infinity from the overwhelming start with ‘A shot in the arm’ and a moving ‘Story to tell’, the star piece of the aforementioned ‘Cruel country’ of forms austere that, however, managed to captivate the public until lighting a fuse that would not go out for the rest of the night. To certify this admirable achievement, Wilco displayed on stage his characteristic chemistry and impressive ability to dialogue on an instrumental level with fascinating precision, unhinging jaws with moments of pure musical and emotional impact such as those starring ‘Handshake Drugs’, a brutal ‘Via Chicago’, that vibrant reminder of their debut, ‘AM’, with ‘Box full of letters’ or some magnificent ‘Tired of taking it out on you’ and ‘Bird without a tail / Base of my skull’ with which they underlined the greatness of his most recent steps.
twenty years of legend
A present that, of course, was accompanied by various stops in the group’s glorious yesterday, especially with regard to its definitive masterpiece: ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, an immeasurable work that is celebrating its twentieth birthday in 2022. A figure significant and special enough to justify (and celebrate) the high number of songs from that monumental work that were brought together at the concert, from the hypnotic melancholy of ‘I am trying to break your heart’ and ‘Poor places’ to the immortal beauty of the highly celebrated ‘Jesus, Etc.’, going through the melodic delight of ‘War on war’, the immense ‘Poor places’ or some ‘I’m the man who loves you’ and ‘Heavy metal drummer’ sung in full communion between the band and the public.
Impossible to highlight one above the other, since they all sounded at the exact height of their status as classics resistant to the passing of decades. A validity and capacity for general fascination shared by other songs such as the beautiful ‘Hummingbird’, ‘California stars’ or ‘Tired of taking it out on you’, the charming ‘If i ever was a child’ and ‘You and I’ or, above all, an ‘Impossible Germany’ where we could verify that the legend surrounding Nels Cline’s solo live is fully justified. What he did with his guitar and the way he did it, a mixture of possession and exquisite elegance, was something close to ecstasy. In short, a set of songs adhered to the honors that rounded off a concert that passed with the fluidity and beauty of a sea that reaches the shore in the morning prologue until launching into the vertigo and sweat typical of the debauchery of rock and roll. in a memorable ending. And it is that, for the last hit, bassist John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche’s drummer, Mikael Jorgensen and his keyboards and the fabulous multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, with Maestro Cline and Chief Tweedy at the helm, decided to step on the accelerator to the maximum. with frenetic ‘Monday’ and ‘Outtasite (outta mind)’, the finishing touch for a very clear candidate for concert of the year in the Region where the members of Wilco, at last, left their indelible marks on the city. Hopefully they serve to return sooner rather than later. We will be waiting for you.
#Wilcos #Footprints