Wilco By Request at Mass MoCA
Third Solid Sound Festival
By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 22, 2013
Hey man, rock and roll.
In North Adams, can you believe it?
Up tight and outasight.
Last night Jeff Tweedy and Wilco blasted off the weekend with an evening of requests submitted by fans launching into a scorching and totally relevant “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy.
It was the third incarnation of an evolving Mass MoCA tradition with the Solid Sound Festival. They skipped last year but performed a benefit concert for the museum.
The popular Chicago based band (Patrick Sansone, Mikael Jorgensen, Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, Glenn Kotche, John Stirratt), with management and recording facilities in Western Mass, first visited the region with a concert at Tanglewood. It blew the roof off the Shed and shook the deeply conservative roots of the staid and stately summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Not that rock is dead at Tanglewood. The BSO has presented annual concerts, not this year, by folk rock, singer/ songwriter, James Taylor. Or dino rockers like the totally out of voice Crosby, Stills and Nash. For the teenie boppers back to back years of Train.
This weekend, on the other side of the county, Tanglewood is easing into the season with Melissa Etheridge, last night, a tribute to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead tonight, and then perennial activist, Joan Baez, with an opener of the Indigo Girls, on Sunday afternoon. We’ll skip the conclusion of the Wilco weekend to catch up with Baez. Back in the 1960s we often saw her with Bob at Club 47 in Cambridge.
With a crush of other photographers, last night, we were herded into the mosh pit in front of the stage of the Joe Thompson Field to shoot the first three songs by Wilco. It was all sharp elbows in the paint jockeying for the money shots. But some babes with heavy equipment, and sloe eyes for Tweedy and his sidekicks, took just a few snaps. They seemed more intent on being up close and personal with the fab rockers.
For most of the working press it was just another day in the pit.
Frantically making the most of limited opportunity I fired away while "Cut Your Hair" by Pavement, Big Star's "In the Street," the opening theme for "That ‘70s Show," blasted above from close range.
Cripes what a perfect night. No stars to speak of, other than those on stage, but a picture moon for the 4,000 or so fans. Today double that number is anticipated. It puts Mass MoCA on the map which is great for local business. Bars and restaurants remained open until 2 AM. The wicked inconvenience annoys some of the locals. Screw em.
Yes the reefer wafted freely in the clear night air. Not having toked a spliff for a score of years I got a contact high from the pungent weed.
Yet again, however, unlike many of the festivals I covered back in the day, this was a mellow family event with lots of toddlers dancing way past bed time. We even spotted breast feeding moms. It was a night to chill and listen to all those zany cover tunes.
While an interesting experiment, which the band seemed to enjoy, the music, some of which was played at random, was an aesthetic mish mash of at times obscure tunes by bands you never heard of.
The band learned and rehearsed some fifty songs while others they were faking through.
“This is all your fault. You asked for it – all requests” Tweedy, an affable host, told the audience. Now appearing for the third time in North Adams he and the band seemed back home at their home away from home.
This time three's a charm and Mass MoCA has its shit together. There were a lot of startup costs during the first festival largely in creating the infrastructure of Joe Thompson Field. Initially, the museum lost money but had an upfront commitment from the band to return and make it an annual or semi annual event.
This time, bottom line, MoCA looks to be in the black having pretty much sold out the weekend. There were also more food concessions, picnic tables, and porta-potties. The MoCA staff and legions of volunteers are keeping things running smoothly.
Later this season the museum will again host Fresh Grass which features blue grass music. While not on the level of Solid Sound it clearly indicates that the museum is in the festival business. We anticipate other and different kinds of events in the future.
We ran into chief preparator Richard Criddle and his family for a group portrait. Always quick with a quip he described Mass MoCA as the “ Criddle family business.” His daughter, who makes fashions from the narrow strips of material used for Wilco wrist bands, runs the museum’s retail operations. Criddle’s son, a video artist, tours with Wilco. Not to be left out his wife, Debora, wearing a staff t-shirt, was helping in the store.
“Everyone’s getting in the act” as Jimmy Durante used to say.
Once ejected from the pit I made my way to the back of the field and its grandstands.
There Astrid and I enjoyed an evening of great music although she thought there were too many twangy country tunes at the start of the set. That, my dear, was a cover of the Grateful Dead. Now and then Tweedy informed us that he was warmed up.
It was too evident that the band was struggling to find the essence of all that material which they never perform. After “And Your Bird Can Sing” by the Beatles he wasn’t happy with their performance. Convinced he could do better they repeated the song. “It’s a lot of work to learn a song and just play it for like two minutes” he said asking "Was that good enough or should we play it again?” They did.
Wiggy.
There were familiar selections by Dylan, “Simple Twist of Fate,” the Stones "Dead Flowers" and Neil Young's “Cinnamon Girl.” But they performed too many numbers that I was totally out of touch with. Seems I hung up my rock and roll shoes too long ago. Except for the occasional night out when rock lands in our back yard in the Berkshires.
Hey man let’s hear it for Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” Rabbit Brown’s “James Alley Blues” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” I heard BOC back in the day but was never a fan. Television’s “Marquee Moon” was cool with references to the big one hovering overhead.
There was a surprise sing-along of “Happy Birthday” for Patrick Sansone. Tweedy commented that the solstice baby is now “Old enough to drink.”
The guy next to us was in Karaoke mode titubating so massively he almost knocked us off the bench.
Wilco brought out some friends who are performing during the festival. Yo La Tengo played “Tom Courtenay” and Lucius joined them for the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” and ABBA’s “Waterloo.” Tommy Stinson played a scorching guitar lead on “Color Me Impressed” by his band, the Replacements.
It was a casual, laid back performance which included occasion bits by comic John Hodgman who selected songs from an enormous list of unrehearsed fan requests using his machine the Randomizer. The bit got tedious. With each off the wall tune he announced “This is my favorite.”
He also took a zinger at Tweedy commenting on his all denim outfit as a “Canadian tuxedo.” Jeff came back saying he met some folks from Halifax that afternoon.
The Randomizer produced mixed results. The band stumbled through the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple” while Tweedy fudged the lyrics.
Significantly, there were no standing O’s or raveups during the two plus hours of music. The vast audience was content to sit through the evening. Mostly because the random nature of the material was largely unfamiliar to the fan base.
Tweedy asked “When we finish playing a song can you put up your hand if you requested it?” The odds of that were roughly one in four thousand.
Tonight will surely be different when the band returns with their own material.
Be there or be square.