Chicago Review

[neal]

I was there and it was in fact a great show. Second time seeing the newish lineup, probably better than the first. It truly was an awesome evening: perfect weather, the best sound I've ever heard at an outdoor show and I was within walking distance from my home.
The good stuff: the band was tight as usual. New tunes were pretty cool. Bo adds a lot on keys, and his and Carl's backup vocals were a nice touch. Jim really took the bull by the horns on lead guitar pretty much the whole set, more than I've seen him do before; he always busts out a few solos but he was burning out the gate. The Dylan cover was kick-ass; anybody should pick up the Rolling Thunder '75 bootleg series if you haven't already. Also, security was non-existent so a couple one-hit pokes were easily achieved.
The bad stuff: nothing really, except for a couple picky things. One, I didn't like the drum machine stuff. I don't mind it in general, but the beats were very elementary and didn't really add anything; Patrick could just as easily play them for real and it would've sounded better. The tunes themselves, especially the opening song, were very good, but I could've done without the piped-in drum machine. The other downside was that they could've played another couple of songs. Usually they play as long (or longer) than they're allowed, but they were advertised to go from 8-9:30, and they stopped a good 10-15 minutes short of 9:30. One or two more tunes would've been great. Which leads me to the final comment...
THE REALLY BAD STUFF: The beer line/ticket system was the worst I've EVER encountered. I won't go into much detail but it was completely unacceptable that they couldn't make it more manageable to get beer. I didn't even see the end of one of the lines. I missed a good 3-4 songs waiting in line; luckily the sound was great and I could still see okay. Somehow I carried three beers back to my sweet spot right in front of the stage, but by that point they were all but done. That's where those extra couple songs would've been nice. All in all a great night.

i totally agree with the drum machine parts. i witnessed it first hand at the bimingham show. he started pushing those buttons at the end of "off the record", which easily could have been peformed on real set of drums. no need to get cool with elementary electric beats.

[Builtolast]

A couple other observations:
1. The show was amazingm, they really are on fire these days.
2. Jim did a sorta goofy, sorta cool dance when he first came out during Laylow, when the drum machine was going, he started to dance around all over the stage, he was shaking his ass and doing a goofy dance, kinda cool.

3. Jim was playing some sort of 12 string (i think) Gibson for Wonderful Man, never seen him play that one before, it was the same body style/color as the one Johnny used to play, but it was either 10 or 12 strings.  That song sounded bad ass, by the way.

4. Jim did some sort of evil laugh as the show was ending.  He had his arms outstretched and he was laughing like he was in some horror movie.  

See y'all in the 'Ville for the Wilco Show or should I say Wilco/MMJ show?  Mmmmm.....?  ???

[aMillionDreams]

4. Jim did some sort of evil laugh as the show was ending.  He had his arms outstretched and he was laughing like he was in some horror movie.  

See y'all in the 'Ville for the Wilco Show or should I say Wilco/MMJ show?  Mmmmm.....?  ???

Jim did that evil laugh thing at the Planetarium show, and I was in such a state that it looked like his facing was melting (if you know what I mean), it was really scary!  See you at Wilco/MMJ in da ville! :)

[cohendal]

you can download the show at http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-details-db.php?id=26417

[red_yeti]

laylow is BADASS

[Jeff Frank]

My friend thinks this show was lame and not even worth downloading. Does ANYONE share his opinion? I'm listening to it now and I thought they played great. True there were a lot of chatty cathy's in the crowd, but I thought the band was really into it.

Jeff

[red_yeti]

i'm listening now and loving the show. whats your friend talkin about, did he give any reasons

[darkglow]

i love the flip out cry that jim's been doing lately (ie the middle of "one big holiday" at this show).. it cracks me up but at the same time shows me that these guys mean business when they are so much into what they're doing that they just sorta black out.. everyone knows about those involuntary flip-out moments

[red_yeti]

hell yea, this is the first newer show i've heard in a while and he seems to be going a little insane, especially that GROWLLLL at the end of One Big Holiday, i love it, can't wait to see them for the first time in Philly in TWO DAYS

[darkglow]

shucks.. i was wishing i could hear "off the record" in this high energy and near flawless set.. looks like the setlist is wrong

[tomEisenbraun]

wait, so what is it instead of off the record?

[tomEisenbraun]

ah figured it out, they screwed it up so that tonight i'm stayin here with you is eleven minutes, and off the record starts at 4:06 in that song

what you can do, is edit where they start and stop, and just put two copies of the song in your iTunes and just edit it so that one is the dylan cover, and the other is off the record

problem fixed!

[darkglow]

cool

[JacketGal]

i love the flip out cry that jim's been doing lately (ie the middle of "one big holiday" at this show).. it cracks me up but at the same time shows me that these guys mean business when they are so much into what they're doing that they just sorta black out.. everyone knows about those involuntary flip-out moments

That's so funny because after he did the off-the-hook scream  my friend, who had never seen them before, actually screamed right after he did! She was so into it, she just opened her mouth and out came a companion scream. It was awesome!

[vielfras]

Here is a link for a clip of Don Dante that I took at the show in Chicago.  Sorry for the sound quality, I was right in front of the speakers.

Hopefully this works

 
      http://www.qfile.de/dl/43609/don_dante_6-18-05.wmv.html

[whothrewthecake]

dude that is awesome. thank you so much!!  ;D

[sweatboard]

Holy Fucking Shit!!! That was AWESOME.  Great Video, I enjoyed that thouroughly.  I wish so bad I had had the balls to sneak in a video recorder to one of the shows.  I'm already jonesing for another show.  

[vielfras]

Cool, glad you liked it and that it works, here is another shorter clip but with worse sound.  By the way I used my digital camera it has a pretty kick ass video mode.  Unfortunately it chews up the memory cards fast - thats why I didn't get all of Don Dante.  I was so pissed.  Wanted to catch the saxaphone at the end.  Oh well, just have to get more memory cards next time.

 
      http://www.qfile.de/dl/45414/off_the_record_6-18-05.wmv.html

Enjoy!

[EC]

I think I read in an interview once that the guys don't like live video recordings of their shows...  I could be wrong.

Don't mean to be the party spoiler or anything like that, either.  I just remembered.

(:))

Wow.  That looks like a hug.

[JacketGal]

OMG vielfras! THANK YOU a million times!! I felt like I was there again and what an epic song! :) :)