Jeff Tweddy this evening was wearing a cow-boy hat and a denim jacket like a real country-blues man... the Cirque Royal was travelling in space, in the woods of the great lakes in USA or downtown Chicago (on the way home). Wilco tonight proved what I was thinking about them since some time already: they are one of the few truly "classic" american musical thing of the moment (together with White Stripes - or rather their "Raconteurs" version -, Sufjian Stevens, Animal Collective and few others). Those have something in common, which is to re-invent the american musical tradition and give it a new life.
In the case of Wilco, we can probably well consider them "The" Country Band of the XXI Century, impressively mixing this stream with everything they have found on their way, from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, from Can to Beck, even passing through the old '70s Santana ("Impossible Germany" from Sky Blue Sky - 2007 - definitely has some reminders).
The visual impact of this contamination in Cirque Royal tonight was the following: Country-Tweddy accompained by an 80s heavy-metal band look-alike drummer, an hippy guitarist/keyboard player, a kraut-rock look alike second guitarist, a school-boy 90s Pop Band look alike keyboard player and a classic rock bass player. The whole looked absolutely normal, harmonic and good!
On the top of that, the show started with an open declaration about the healing power of the music, which in the case of Tweddy, as everyone knows, is not just the rethoric of an edulcorated love song but the truth about his life - and you can feel it from his tone of voice that he really mean what he says ("music saved my life") - same biographical note came again later in a more ironic way when everybody was shaking and dancing with the vibes of "handshaking drugs" (from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel - 2002).
Last but not least, like in any respectful classic rock concert I saw the Groupies. Yes, this is not a yellow-press joke to add some gossip to sell more copies - otherwise I would have put this at the beggining of the review;-) but indeed at the end of the concert there was a girl in a red dress and blond hairs which was shaking her head like mad just few metres from me and her brunette friend who just went up on the stage at the end of the concert and quickly head in the backstage with the Band (amazing!).
No comments:
Post a Comment