Wilco Not Going Quietly Into the Macramé Night

It’s been forever since Wilco was considered anything close to hip, or now, but last night — when four out of five of our casually inebriated post-softball buds turned down a plus-one to the show at Hammerstein Ballroom in favor of more drinking — we had to consider whether the Chicago alt-country-cum-art-rockish jam band crossed over into a nefarious nether region. Had Wilco become actively uncool?

In the wake of the seventies AM-radio pop sound of the band’s latest, Sky Blue Sky, the mini-controversy over the licensing of songs for a series of Volkswagen commercials, and last night’s show, where a fun balcony diversion was playing Spot the Bald Spot, the suspicion closed in like a chokehold. Front man Jeff Tweedy even made a nod to it, by way of introduction: “I don’t think we’ve played here in two or three years … you guys have really grown up since then.�

“We’re trying to graduate to a rock show,� Tweedy later joked. “We have a backdrop.� And with that the spotlight turned onto an amorphous bunny-owl hybrid rag doll, apparently a macramé creation, hanging overheard. “Seriously, if you have macramé, send it to Wilco, Chicago.� Whip-tight noise freak-outs didn’t hurt either, like the demolishing “At Least That’s What You Said.� “We missed you, New York, we really did!� Tweedy screamed over the crashing cymbals and no-longer-slumbering crowd.

By double encore, the band was fully in stride. “This is our hit song,� an excitable Tweedy yelped before the unmistakable bashing drum intro to the beatific “Heavy Metal Drummer.� And when the band wrapped up the show by ripping through the gibberish pop perfection of “I’m a Wheel,� we realized, with a relieved exhale, that no act with this kind of back catalog could ever be destined for total irrelevance. —Amos Barshad

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