Their Thursday night stop at Dallas' South Side Ballroom began with a one-woman show, My Brightest Diamond, who called everyone to attention with an opening tribute to the recently fallen Sinead O’Connor. It began with O’Connor’s own voice from her infamous Saturday Night Live performance.
“I know you,” Diamond told the crowd. “I cut my teeth playing open mics at Club Dada.” She also shouted out Dallas bands Course of Empire and Rubberbullet. “I know you,” she repeated.
Her art rock show, complete with equipment taken from Wilco’s Chicago studio, set an experimental tone for an evening headlined by a band that has, for decades, defied and redefined genre labels.
Wilco had performed its own open mic in Dallas, playing an impromptu set the night before just a few doors down at Poor David’s Pub to a small crowd who had seen the event advertised on the pub’s marquee.
During My Brightest Diamond’s set, the thin crowd filled in, leading up to Wilco’s scheduled 8:30 p.m. start time.
And at 8:30 p.m. sharp, the house lights went down and Wilco emerged.
Led by singer Jeff Tweedy, in front of a stage set with streamers and colorful lights, Wilco began with a cut from the recently released album, Cousin, “Infinite Surprise” — a song that left the audience in silence until the cheers rang out at the song’s conclusion.
The band played another song from the album with a wailing guitar solo from Nels Cline, a member since 2004.
The energy both on stage and in the crowd picked up considerably when the band played its third song of the night, “Handshake Drugs” from 2004’s A Ghost Is Born.
Tweedy kept the stage banter light, plugging the new album when appropriate, periodically asking if the audience was OK, but otherwise staying stoic and letting the music do the talking.
The genre bending continued throughout the night with Wilco moving from the wailing experimental guitars of the new record to Americana tracks like “Cruel Country.”
The night's first real singalong moment came with the opening track of Wilco’s most iconic album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
“I am an American aquarium drinker,” the crowd shouted out after the introduction to “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.”
When the band reached the line, “What was I thinking when we said hello?” Tweedy looked into the crowd and repeated a simple “Hello.”
And in the song’s breakdown, mirroring the chaos of the album cut, the band broke down into noises and instrument changes.
After a few slower tracks, the drums hit hard, followed by a thunderous roar of guitars, leading the audience into one of the band’s earliest tracks, “Misunderstood” — a song that looked forward to the band’s trademark blending of rock and country, and most importantly, art.
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From there, the band went into the disjointed, Devo-like title track from its new album, proving that Wilco can never be put into a box, even from song to song.
The next singalong moment came when Tweedy shed his guitar to sing “Hummingbird” against a stage flooded in purple hues. The phone cameras came out and the mic was turned to the audience for the song’s chorus.
After the song, Tweedy broke his silence, asking the audience if the venue had once been called the Palladium, to which the audience cheered.
“We played there,” he said, and without missing the opportunity for a good dad joke, added, “We’ve never played here before.”
After a few slower tracks, the drums hit hard, followed by a thunderous roar of guitars, leading the audience into one of the band’s earliest tracks, “Misunderstood” — a song that looked forward to the band’s trademark blending of rock and country, and most importantly, art.
The band would play one last new song, “Evicted,” a classic-sounding Wilco song, before launching into a string of fan favorites, including a psychedelic, extended version of “Impossible Germany,” an extra-slow and sweet version of “Jesus, etc.” and a pitch-perfect version of “Heavy Metal Drummer.”
By the end of Wilco's show, one thing was certain: The band had really shown its full range, not just by playing different blends of music but by knowing the ways in which those different kinds of music actually resonate with the band's diverse audience.
