There’s no good way to stand and wait. Nothing to lean on, just shift weight from one leg to the other, feeling the blood rush through your foot for a brief moment of comfort at the expense of your other foot, then switching feet, over and over, trying to be comfortable, trying to endure the opening act from Philadelphia and their strive-to-be-ironic sunglasses.

I used to work the counter at a fast food joint. The first few days were a big surprise on my knees and feet. After that my legs were somewhat conditioned to handle it. These days I’m not on my feet much. ‘Dr. Dog’ from Philadelphia are not making this wait easy. My mind starts wandering about how bands must have to stand a lot. They’re up there moving around and I wonder how their backs and legs feel. Except for the drummer. I’m jealous of him. Sitting up there banging away… Sitting up there with his sunglasses…

Wilco comes on stage and starts off with a lame ass song from their new album. I’m trying to stay awake. I’ve been up since 5:30, but did a horrible tasting red bull on the way here. They then do ‘A Shot in the Arm’ which I always say is my favorite Wilco song.

But I’m not feeling it. I feel old, tired and done with Wilco, a band I fell in love with in college. And now, like so many other things from my past - we seem to be parting ways.

Jeff Tweedy looks in my direction with a look of reluctant indictment, sizing me up.

“You’ve changed…”

In 1996 I was in Mr. Kellen’s 7:30am World Lit class my senior year of high school. An acquaintance named Jeff Fitzpatrick brought an issue of Rolling Stone and was going over their ‘reviews in brief’ section. He was partially upset that his favorite band’s new album only received 3 stars out of 4, but was glad nonetheless that they were getting some much needed national exposure. I told him that if he felt so high about this band that he should bring it in to class, and I would bring in something too.

I wish I could remember what I brought in. I guess that’s the point. Jeff brought Wilco’s Being There, and I brought something I can’t remember anymore.

“Listen to the first track,” he instructed, “and tell me what song it reminds you of.” I listened to all six mintues and twenty-eight seconds of ‘Misunderstood’ and answered quizzically, “A Day in the Life?” to which Jeff Fitzpatrick delightfully responded, “I know! Doesn’t it???”

(If you’re familiar with ‘A Day in the Life’ but unfamiliar with ‘Misunderstood’ - to be fair only one part of the song sounds similar.)

It would be another 18 months and 1400 miles before I would hear the rest of the album. I found it in a Hastings in Searcy, Arkansas, and had enough for the eighteen dollar sticker price. When I listened to ‘Misunderstood’ this time around, it meant something, whereas before it was just a cool sounding song. In the time between listens I had graduated high school, lived through the longest summer of my life, then left home and went to college. (In Searcy, Arkansas.)

I met some of the best friends I had yet to meet, yet still felt awfully out of place (with girls) and felt inbetween the long depressing summer right after high school and the new life I had started in Armstrong Dorm. Right from the first lyrics of ‘Misunderstood’ -

‘when you’re back in your old neighborhood…’

- I instantly felt like whoever it was singing this knew how I felt.

Whoever that was turned out to be Jeff Tweedy. He and a few other members from the broken up alternative country band Uncle Tupelo formed what would become Wilco; a band that started strictly alt/country and gradually wandered into alt before slowly coming back to its roots (somewhat regrettably, but whatever.)

The next step in that progression in sound was Summerteeth. It was released in 1999 but I didn’t hear it or pick it up until two years later, still being way behind the curve. I had gone back and picked up Wilco’s first album A.M., but didn’t feel like they had much more to offer. I “wasn’t in the mood for another alt/country album” I distinctly remember thinking. In the fall of 2001 I was directing TV news on our university’s student-run nightly newscast. I was looking at the new iMac in the back of the control room and browsing the extensive iTunes sampler that was included with it. They had Wilco’s ‘Monday’ from Being There! I was surprised to see a band that it seemed only I knew about on an iTunes sampler. But the sampler also included ‘A Shot in the Arm’ from the as yet unlistened to Summerteeth.

Maybe once or twice a year, if I’m lucky, do I get to honestly say “I was blown away” by a piece of music. I vividly remember getting my mind blown by ‘A Shot in the Arm’ that day, fixing an unfocused gaze past the (then new) iTunes visualizer. Every time I’ve heard the song since, I can still see those weird, random, pointless waveform patterns.

The band had changed and made something decidedly new and different. Although that has been their calling card their whole career, I didn’t know it at the time, and giddily went on half.com and found a copy. I remember getting it in the mail and eating up all the tracks over and over the next few weeks. I made a minidisc of my favorite songs from the three albums and brought it with me to Detroit where I gave it to Jeff Bennett. I remember playing ‘A Shot in the Arm’ and preceeding it with “This is Wilco’s ‘Paranoid Android’.” I made a fan of Jeff that day.

Wilco released the excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in ‘02, had the process documented in the film ‘I Am Trying to Break Your Heart’, switched out a few members, and released two more albums in the last three years. Their sound swung experimental and is now returning to something more “normal”. Somewhere along the way they got a lot bigger, and are now appearing in VW television ads. (Which we all know is the ultimate goal of all alt/country slash alt bands.)

The swing to “normal” is also a little more “boring”. Even now, when they’re playing their own ‘Paranoid Android’ just feet in front of me, it sounds stale.

“You’ve changed…”

Yeah Jeff, I changed, but you did too man.

I lean over to Dustin to tell him I wish we had seen up and coming band ‘The National’ instead.

Two hours later, however, I feel guilty for being so down on Wilco and Tweedy. Their set gets better and better and I feel more and more comfortable as the night wears on, punctuated by an epic rendition of ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)’ before launching into nine (!) encores. I leave that night thinking I had seen a great show by a band that has a plethora of great songs, yet still wishing I had seen them at their height, probably around when Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out.

Then I wince as I think about how it’s been five years since then. What will I feel and think five years from now? Not just about Wilco, but about the things that make me happy today…

“What you once were isn’t what you want to be, anymore.”

Setlist from the Palladium Ballroom

Selling Volkswagens

Wilco at allmusic.com