Review – Jeff Tweedy brought Wilco fan favourites and plenty of jokes to his packed Corona show

Photos by Victor Ahn-Royer. 

Touring in support of 2017’s Together at Last album, which features solo renditions and re-interpretations of songs by Wilco and his various side-projects, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy strode onto the stage at Montreal’s Corona Theatre last night and got right down to business.

Armed only with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, Tweedy opened with “Via Chicago” off Wilco’s Summerteeth album, before proceeding to run through a mix of Wilco favourites and solo songs without uttering a word to the audience. That’s not to say the performance wasn’t engaging — when Tweedy kicked into “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” off 2002’s beloved Yankee Foxtrot Hotel album just three songs into his set, no one in the packed theatre was lamenting the lack of stage banter.

As stirring and threadbare as that initial run of songs was, something changed in the room about midway through Tweedy’s 90-minute set when he began engaging with the crowd. It may have been when he debuted a new song for the first time ever, which turned into a back-and-forth with the eager crowd that ate up any attention from Tweedy they could get.

From then on out it may have been the Jeff Tweedy Comedy Hour, as he prefaced each new song with an anecdote or a self-deprecating line about how Wilco never had a hit song, which gave him some freedom when putting together a set list for these solo shows; “They’re all just OK,” he quipped about the band’s storied back catalogue.

What followed were stories about getting arrested while crossing into Canada (someone apparently forgot they had some illicit substances in their luggage), and some great lines about how Tweedy was slowly cultivating the persona of a 50-year-old dad rock schlub, or “Chubby Stardust,” as he jokingly referred to himself.

Tweedy then led the enthusiastic crowd through a sing along to a comical new song about The Great Flood, which seemingly then bestowed them with the confidence to sing along for the rest of the night, especially on Wilco standouts tracks “Passenger Side” and “Jesus Etc.”

While the show was entirely acoustic, this wasn’t akin to Jeff Tweedy Unplugged — “Bull Black Nova” brought out the first truly aggressive strumming of the night, while the interlude of “Misunderstood” saw Tweedy trying to re-create the noisy band breakdown of the original song with only solo acoustic guitar histrionics. “Why are you laughing?” he deadpanned in the middle of the section, aware of just how ridiculous it was.

With security vigilantly ensuring no one was filming the show, the whole night felt like a truly intimate affair, no easy feat considering the cavernous size of the theatre. By eliminating all distractions and focusing solely on the songs and his connection to the crowd, Tweedy provided the backdrop for one of the most satisfying shows of the year. Forget the fake campfire that Justin Timberlake erected in the middle of the Bell Centre earlier this week — this was the true communal experience that everyone in the crowd was hoping for.

Set list

Via Chicago
Bombs Above
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
Ashes of American Flags
(Unknown) new song
Hummingbird
Remember the Mountain Bed
New Madrid (Uncle Tupelo song)
Locator
Laminated Cat (Loose Fur song)
Bull Black Nova
Passenger Side
Noah’s Flood (Let’s Go Rain Again)
Jesus, Etc.
Theologians
I’m the Man Who Loves You

Encore:

Misunderstood
California Stars
Impossible Germany
Kamera
A Shot in the Arm