For my money, Wilco has remained a shining light in the ever-bleak American rock music scene. I'd have given anything to have caught this show at the Fillmore last night:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.htmlOn Monday night Wilco paid a visit to the Fillmore in San Francisco, and like just about everyone else these days, singer Jeff Tweedy had politics all over the brain. "Thanks for all the requests," he said to an electrified crowd after the band rocked through a couple opening numbers. "We'll probably play 73 percent of them. And that's not an exit poll. That's an exact count."
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As did the technology. "You guys are being cast on the Internets," Tweedy grinned at one point, reminding the crowd of the concert's Webcast. "Say hello to the folks in cyberspace." The crowd roared its approval. "Cyberspace is definitely a blue state," he added.
There was also Tweedy's preamble to "War on war" from "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." "So when's this war gonna end?" he asked. "It's just gonna keep going and going and going, isn't it. Only if we don't speak up.
"Don't mourn," he said, managing not to sound too preachy to the Bay Area choir. "Organize."
A bit later in the evening, following a blistering version of "Monday," Tweedy let loose some more red-state, blue-state riffage. Noting that it was getting late, he pointed out how the San Francisco crowd was a bona fide example of America's current cultural divide. "See, in blue states this is what we do. We dance and sing on a Monday night. That's one difference, anyway."
As the two-hour-plus show throttled to a close (one guy behind me exclaimed, "They don't have any songs left!") the minor psychedelia of lights playing against the stage backdrop morphed into a few seconds of dark footage -- the big bad fella himself. There he was, in all his smirking glory, Dubya. And sure enough, he was firing off that infamous one-fingered victory salute.
Bush's mug, of course, set up what was perhaps the best political barb of the evening. The band proceeded to bid farewell by laying into Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper."