Photo courtesy of KLRU / Scott Newton.
Last Friday and Saturday, Jeff Tweedy came to Austin for two nights, including the ACL taping for the PBS shows 40th season we witnessed, where he treated the studio audience to a marked night in his 20+ year career. The Wilco frontman is releasing a solo album, Sukierae, on September 16 on Wilco’s label dBpm under the moniker Tweedy, as his “solo” effort is called, joined by his 18-year-old son Spencer on drums. Tweedy Sr. describes the writing process:
“When I set out to make this record, I imagined it being a solo thing, but not in the sense of one guy strumming an acoustic guitar and singing. Solo to me meant that I would do everything—write the songs, play all the instruments and sing. But Spencer’s been with me from the very beginning demo sessions, playing drums and helping the song take shape. In that sense, the record is kind of like a solo album performed by a duo.”
Photo courtesy of KLRU / Scott Newton.
The first half of Tweedy’s two-hour set included cuts exclusively from the 20-song release due out later this fall. “That’s always fun at a concert,” Tweedy joked halfway through a set of material nobody had heard before. The songs don’t stray too far away from familiar Wilco material: unusual chord changes peppered with noisy dirges from Jim Elkington channeling his best Nels Cline, with a familiar and recognizable melody that Tweedy gracefully gravels over the rest of the solid backing band.
Multi-instrumentalist Liam Cunningham provided some unison lead guitar to Elkington’s riffs, giving an interesting live sound that worked well within the dependable sounding Moody Theater. Tweedy himself was full of quick quips and sarcastic remarks, getting himself into rhetorical messes that he modestly bowed out of before digging himself too deep. In one ramble, he said “love” is a popular subject in the new album’s thematics: “What else do you want me to do? I’m a songwriter. What else is there?”
Photo courtesy of KLRU / Scott Newton.
Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe of the band Lucius contributed vocals to the new album and joined the stage Friday night towards the end of the first set, providing their brand of close harmony Americana-tinged backing vocals appropriately with the rest of Tweedy. Spencer was a solid inclusion in the mix, demonstrating a tasteful approach to percussion that neither detracted or called for special attention in his talents. A young player, he found a tight pocket with bassist Darin Gray whose spirited presence buoyed young drummer.
Following the full band set, Tweedy sang a set alone, picking numbers from the Wilco and Uncle Tupelo catalog that erased any new-material-jitters or doubts. Tweedy has a mastery of songwriting that is uniquely his own. Insightful looks into the emotional vulnerability and reality of the human condition are paired with experimental stream of consciousness outbursts and angular chord changes to accentuate the sometimes fragile existence created independently and with others. His own vulnerability may have been captured as he attempted to playfully engage the audience in a cult-like chant of “Slow love is the only love,” an appropriately ambiguous mantra for the enigmatic Chicago-based songwriter, who lavishes in the emotional morass of life’s unpredictability and slow changes.
The Lucius singers came back on stage for “Jesus, etc.,” a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot highlight of the evening. The rest of the band joined towards the end of the encore with a rousing Tweedy rendition of the Uncle Tupelo/Doug Sahm tune “Give Back the Key to My Heart.”
Set List:
Down From Above
Diamond Light
Flowering
Summer Noon
World Away
Desert Bell
Honey Combed
New Moon
Where My Love
High As Hello
Wait For Love
Low Key
Slow Love
Nobody Dies
Via Chicago (solo)
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (solo)
New Madrid (solo)
Hummingbird (solo)
Please Tell My Brother (solo)
Born Alone (solo)
Jesus Etc. (with Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe of Lucius)
Passenger Side (solo)
Give Back the Key to My Heart (band)
California Stars (band)
Misunderstood (solo)
