Wilco takes fans on feverish, brilliant journey

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Sep 16, 2002 by Bill Reed

DENVER - Jeff Tweedy's voice sounded like the final dispatch from a man about to careen into madness as he forced out the words "music is my savior."

The line punctuated "Sunken Treasure," the first song of Wilco's blistering two-hour show Saturday at the Fillmore Auditorium. The weight of the words wasn't lost on the full house of feverish fans.

The sentiment is actually a reversal because the music world has been looking to Tweedy as its savior for the past year. With his blue jeans, rowdy mop of hair and sunken eyes, the Wilco frontman is the poster boy for artistic integrity since the band produced the experimental "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album, got dropped by their label and then got the last laugh by releasing one of the finest works in recent memory.

Believe the hype. Adding up his work with alt-country heroes Uncle Tupelo in the early '90s, the collaborations with Billy Bragg to give voice to Woody Guthrie's long-lost lyrics and Wilco's recent work, Tweedy is one of the finest musicians we've got.

He didn't mess around Saturday night. Tweedy stepped on stage, turned his intense gaze toward the crowd and got down to business.

Backed by the harmony vocals of bassist John Stirrat, the instrumental virtuosity of Leroy Bach on guitars and keys, and the terrifying brutality of drummer Glenn Kotche, Tweedy led us on an intrepid musical journey.

Wilco stopped off at folk-rock in the lineage of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. The band dabbled in Beck-like programmed sound as a moody cloak around the "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" songs. By the end of the night, Wilco was tearing the roof off with flat-out guitar-shredding rock 'n' roll.

Tweedy started with a pounding, repeated jam on 1996's "Sunken Treasure" and the quiet rumination of "Less Than You Think." Then he pulled out "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," the alcohol-soaked descent into chaos that kicks off the new album.

Wilco played eight of 11 songs off the album, but the detached restraint of the studio was replaced by urgent moaning from the edge. Even the poppy "War on War" and "Kamera" were propelled by a rollicking diesel engine on this night.

The roller coaster hit full speed as Tweedy tortured his guitar neck until it matched his wailing declaration of love on "I'm the Man Who Loves You." Next, a purposely chaotic, discordant jam on "Misunderstood" slowly coalesced around the drum rhythm. Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

It sounded like the ceaseless, unforgiving pounding of factory equipment. The song asks "Do you still love rock 'n' roll?" Tweedy does, and this is the sound of him tearing it apart in a desperate attempt to save it. Kotche beat his drum kit with psychotic rage, and Tweedy screamed "nothing ... nothing ... nothing" in time with Kotche's blows.

For a moment, I thought this was it. Wilco finally had dropped off the edge, and we were witnessing the chilling final plummet into the abyss. Then the band pulled out of the dive and moved seamlessly into the stripped-down hopefulness of "Reservations."

The awe of that moment carried through two encores of older Wilco favorites. Then I picked up my jaw and shuffled out of the Fillmore. But my head is still buzzing, as if the ambient fuzz of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" has seeped into my skull.

Wilco teeters between traditional and experimental, between moments of rock triumph and profound brokenness, between scraps of hope and endless sorrow. The band twirls on the edge, searching for a savior, and the sound of the struggle is breathtaking.

WILCO IN CONCERT

RATING: A

WHERE: Fillmore Auditorium

WHEN: Saturday night

HIGHLIGHTS: The Shins, out of Albuquerque, N.M., performed a 45- minute set of satisfying power-pop. Imagine Weezer growing up with the Southwestern influences.