by David Barnes
Daily Lobo
Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy knows what he's doing.
The band's concert at the Kiva Auditorium on Tuesday was everything you'd expect from a group that is regarded by many to be one of the best bands today. Drawing heavily on material from 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and 2004's A Ghost is Born, Wilco stormed through a two-hour set without even the smallest hiccup, leaving devoted fans and more recent admirers alike captivated throughout.
Dressed in a black shirt and jeans, Tweedy led his group from strength to strength, pausing only occasionally to make small talk with the audience. With seven stellar albums to choose from, the biggest problem for Wilco may be choosing which songs to unveil every night.
The band's apparently effortless ability to mix older and newer work stands as a testament to its artistic purity.
But whatever the band plays, it always sounds like Wilco.
The mid-tempo beauty, "Hell is Chrome," was followed by the faster "Kamera" before gently disintegrating into the resplendent ambience of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart."
With the audience now firmly behind them, band members went about their business in magnificent fashion, demonstrating an irresistible mixture of technique, passion and intelligence. The tender musings of "At Least That's What You Said" and the pretty ballad "Hummingbird" gave way to the glittering pop of "A Shot In The Arm."
Since releasing its first album in 1995, the group has gone through a number of changes in personnel. Tweedy's acrimonious split from guitarist and writing partner Jay Bennett was captured in the 2002 documentary, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart."
But the Wilco's lineup is perhaps the best it's ever been. The addition of guitar virtuoso Nels Cline in 2004 deepened the group's sound, leaving Tweedy free to orchestrate the rich textures the band is so well known for.
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Wearing a brilliantly colored red shirt, Cline sat down to play slide guitar for the sublime "Jesus, etc." As Tweedy sang, Cline was hunched over his guitar, looking more like a curious scientist than the brilliant guitarist he is.
Neatly balancing songs from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, Wilco played superb versions of "Handshake Drugs," "Ashes of American Flags" and "War on War" before Tweedy introduced "Theologians" by saying, "This is a song about the need to privatize Social Security."
The 10-minute epic "Kidsmoke" may be as good as anything the band has ever done. Live it's even better. Its numerous twists and turns revealed themselves slowly as Tweedy sang, "Spiders are singing in the salty breeze/ spiders are filling out tax returns/ spinning out webs of deductions and melodies/ on a private beach in Michigan."
Wilco is nearing perfection.
