Tweedy with opening band The Minus 5

June 11, 2014

The Brown Theatre on Broadway | Louisville, KY

Review and photography by: Tony Vasquez of Vasquez Photography

The night starts off with legendary musician Scott McCaughey and his band The Minus 5. The set is filled with short straight loud rock material that has me nodding my head to the catchy rhythms. Early in the set they brought a smile to my face when they played the “Old Plantation” and “Days of Wine and Booze” from the Minus 5 album they did with Wilco back in 2003 entitled “Down With Wilco.” It was a great start to the night with the promise of more great music to come.

Jeff Tweedy has been playing music for nearly three decades spanning from his UncleTupelo days to present band Wilco. Jeff has quite a catalog of music to pick and choose from when he does his solo shows. This time it was going to be a bit different starting off the night with little over a dozen new tracks from his forthcoming solo LP Sukierae, which is set for release on September 16.

Jeff and his son Spencer Tweedy, a drummer for The Blisters, worked collaboratively on the new LP. The rest of the backing band include long time friend and bass player Darin Gray, Jim Elkington on guitar, and Liam Cunningham on keyboard/guitar. The band receives a warm welcome from the crowd at the historic Brown Theatre on Broadway and they jump right in with the new material. Most of the early songs were slower paced folk-structured tunes. On the second song of the night, “Diamond Light,” Spencer and Darin Gray set a driving rhythm with subtle guitar and keyboard parts laced through out the song. Jeff lyrics are haunting, “are you scared, are you frightened, terrified of being alone.” The song continues to build with layering of guitar parts until the last third where Jeff pulls off one of his classic guitar solos and then he fades away with only the drums and bass left continuing the same driving rhythm they had set earlier in the song.

“Honey Combed” starts off with Jeff picking on his acoustic like he starts off so many of his folk numbers. The song “New Moon” sticks out in my mind with great guitar solos coming from Jim Elkington. Later in the set Jeff tries to get the crowd involved by having them sing the chorus to “Slow Love”. The crowd responds quietly at first until Jeff calls-out the crowd saying, “Don’t you want to do better than Baltimore?”

There are a few more classic banter moments from Jeff over the course of the night including when he is introducing the band. He makes a crack at Jim Elkington for being from England. Immediately after he pokes fun at Jim he says that was a Michael Richards career ending moment. As for the introduction of his son Spencer he recalls when he was first born that he thought Spencer looked like a “chewed piece of bubble gum” and thinking that he “could learn to love him.” Tweedy promptly follows this up by sharing that he loves Spencer more than he could ever say.

Midway through the night the band goes off the stage and Jeff then begins to play old Wilco, Loose Fur, Golden Smog, and Uncle Tupelo tunes. A few of my favorite moments of the night come when he played “No More Poetry,” “Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season),” and “New Madrid.” For the encore the band comes back and plays a Doug Sahm cover, which Uncle Tupelo had done on their album Anodyne. Then Scott McCaughey joins the band on keyboard, and they play another new tune, “Low Key,” followed by California Stars. The band and Jeff leave the stage with the crowd standing and at an all time high. Finally Jeff comes back out with an acoustic version of Misunderstood encouraging the crowd to sing along. Ending the night with the lines “I’d like to thank you all for nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.”

Set list: Down From Above, Diamond Light, Honey Combed, Flowering, Desert Bel, Summer Noon, Fake Fur Coat, World Away, New Moon, High As Hello, Where My Love, Slow Love, Nobody Dies Anymore Via Chicago, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, New Madrid, Pecan Pie, No More Poetry, You And I, Hummingbird, Laminated Cat (aka Not For The Season), The Ruling Class, Passenger Side, Jesus, Etc.

Encore Give: Back The Key To My Heart [Doug Sahm cover], Low Key, California Stars, Misunderstood

Photo Gallery: Tweedy