Today's the big day for the Wilco tickets. As you may or may not know, the Wilco tickles the Wombury's fancy. Is any other artist worth listening to? Maybe not. For years, the Wombury has listened religiously to every Wilco album, sponging up every chord, note, and lyric as if they hold the secret to life. He's seen them twice in concert, once in 2004 at Carnegie Hall, and once this past June in Shelburne, VT, not far from the Loaf of Bread (the 2007 concert was sans N, and precipitated their fateful summer reunion.)
Seeing Wilco changed the way the Wombury viewed live music, but not for the better. It dawned on him that Rock Concerts sort of blow. At least for the Wombury. The Wombury is an album listener. He grew up Abbey Road, The Joshua Tree, Led Zepplin IV. These are unified works of art, not a collection of 10 singles. That's why the Wombuy hated 90s music. Bands like Better than Ezra, who were a dime a dozen, would toss off one decent song for the radio, you'd buy the album and the other 11 tracks sounded like they were composed by mentally handicapped gradeschoolers with access to recording equipment.
Now, the Wombury never got the chance to see his favorite bands in their heyday, the once exception being U2's Pop Tour in 1997, which was terrible, and Bruce Springsteen in 1999. What he realized is that concerts are unfulfilling because they're like listening to mix tape of the band's best songs, or like a radio station that plays only favorite bands songs in all the wrong order. It drives the Wombury crazy. He hates change, which is why it angered so much when his mother cut and permed her hair back in 1983. The order of tracks on an album is important to good bands. Good bands deliberate for hours on end about the best possible sequence. It's nearly impossible for me to listen to "Jesus, etc." without first hearing "War on War,". So, back in 2004 the Wombury announced he was giving up Rock Concerts in favor of more satisfying genres like Jazz or Symphonies. Pure improvisation or Pure Composition. Nothing else. The perfect show, he said, back in 2004, would be for a band to play an album live, like Phish use to do (but they covered other bands' albums), from beginning to end. This was like a crusade of mine. Rock Concerts suck, anyone who says otherwise is stupid.
Somehow the Gods of Rock have smiled upon me, and presented me with the ultimate experience. My favorite band playing five nights in a row, playing their entire catalogue, one album per night. Just sit with that awesomeness for a second. Sit with it. Play with it. Tickle it under the chin and make cooing noises at it. Take the awesomeness, put it a greased pan and bake into an awesomeness cake.
So, in ten minutes the scramble will begin online for tickets. Right now we have a solid strategy to score tickets for each night. We have a posse. There's Wilco fan extraordinaire, E, from Madison, her brother P, the Wombury and Mlevy. Each person gets a different night, four tickets apiece.
Let the games begin. And yes, I know this is a boring post. Give me a free pass. Bedgaro is back in town and we were up late having dinner in Queens of all places.
And now for a picture of a woman from Iowa,
(You have nothing to worry about, other than you)
Until then,
The Wombury
The Wombury
No comments:
Post a Comment