In between, the group even joined Yo La Tengo during their Friday show at the Metro to plow through a batch of covers, as if the band hadn’t been tasked with enough songs to remember.Įach show featured another local Chicago standby, the burgeoning Horsegirl, as support. Saturday, on the other hand, covered many of the fan favorites from YHF, Summerteeth, and Being There, including the obligatory and much revered “Via Chicago”. Thursday night, the band, playing their first show in almost six months, plowed through much of their more country-tinged material, touching on tracks from A.M., Mermaid Avenue, and especially their newest album, Cruel Country. The Thursday and Saturday night shows set a precedent too. Wilco, on the other hand, offers one of the deepest and most rewarding discographies in modern music, and that’s what they provided. Now the band, free of gimmicks and obligations, has promised their fans that the current slate of concerts will feature no repeats, an obligation that for most groups would add up to a couple of extremely short and boring sets. Aside from a few secret shows the band played at the laid-back country dive Carol’s Pub last fall, the group’s last Chicago tour dates were dedicated to three nights of playing their opus Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in full to honor its 20-year anniversary. Jeff Tweedy and company know the former movie palace well, playing there many times over the years and even using it as the base for a five-night series of performances back in 2008. Given Wilco’s consistent championing of Chicago’s local institutions, and another Uptown landmark Carol’s Pub in particular, The Rivera Theater seems like exactly the kind of venue for the band to host their latest three-night run and the start of their spring tour. As the area’s zeitgeist waivered though, the theatres grew into a weekend oasis of vibrancy amongst an otherwise casual and sleepy north-side neighborhood. Located at what had initially been the end of the L Train system, The Aragon Ballroom, Green Mill Jazz Club, and long-defunct Uptown Theatre quickly defined the corners of Broadway and Lawrence Avenue as the designated area for Chicagoans to congregate for the arts.
Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood was once the center of the city’s booming entertainment district.
0 kommentar(er)
