That's a roger for an exciting Wilco tour de force
By Christopher Blagg
Saturday, June 25, 2005 - Updated: 12:22 AM EST
The seemingly colossal gap between rustic folk and avant garde rock was bridged Friday night at the Agganis Arena.
Only a band as ridiculously talented and fearless as Wilco could have pulled off such a feat. In the midst of their first arena tour of their career, the Chicago-based sextet put on an explosive and at times violent rock show in front of a worshipful, fiercely loyal crowd.
With the addition of guitar maestro Nels Cline on lead guitar, this new and somehow improved version of Wilco reveled in the tension between gorgeous melodies and noisy sound collages throughout their set. With every whispered fragile verse came a fiercely dissonant white noise counterpart.
The Woody Guthrie-penned acoustic stomp of ``Airline To Heaven'' began the show, Cline's weeping pedal steel bouncing off Tweedy's cracked tenor with ease. The first hint of the band's inclination towards brash dissonance soon appeared with the stinging electric guitar bursts of ``Im the Man Who Loves You.''
The band showed no hesitation in combining their prettier sounds with art rock noise.
``Handshake Drugs'' benefitted from a snaky Motown groove percolating under shredding discordant squalls of white noise, creating a heady mix of beauty and ferocity that most rock bands don't dare tread.
Amid the occasional showers of cacophony, Tweedy offered little doses of heartbreaking tenderness, quieting the crowd on verses like, ``I want to hold you in the Bible black pre-dawn'' with an anti-rock-star sincerity not usually found at arenas.
There were bouts of levity, as on the summery whimsical pop of ``Heavy Metal Drummer,'' after which Tweedy announced ``There goes the arena portion of the show. Now we'll play all our really depressing tunes.'' The crowd roared in approval, forcing Tweedy to retort, ``What is wrong with you people?''
Throughout the night, singer and frontman Jeff Tweedy was more animated than his usual timid self, which seemed to confirm his earlier statements in the Herald that this was the most fun he'd been having in his musical career.
The fragile ballad ``Jesus, Etc'' was given a rhythmic, almost bouncy facelift halfway through the two hour set, but was then trumped by the spare and haunting majesty of ``Sunken Treasure,'' where Tweedy sang, ``I was maimed by rock n roll. I got my name from rock n roll,'' in a delicate whisper caught by even the farthest away of crowd members. Two sets of encores finished off the night, Tweedy and his mates ending with a harmony-laden rootsy reading of Dylan's ``I Shall Be Released.''
The southern rock/psychedelic hybrid of My Morning Jacket opened the show, singer Jim James unleashing his soulful tenor on the soaring riff rock of ``Mageetah'' and the country folk of ``Golden.''
As powerful and impressive as the
