Wilco, The Heartless Bastards

It seems, that with all the house shows and bar shows and art gallery shows and backyards of extremely shady apartment complexes shows I’ve been going to of late, I’ve forgotten what a concert is supposed to sound like. There are certainly positive aspects of leaving a concert with your ears ringing, having to wonder if you had just been to a show or if you’d actually just been laying on the floor for two hours letting someone stomp on your head in a pair of combat boots. But sitting in the bleachers of Duquesne University’s basketball stadium was definitely a welcome change of pace.

As The Heartless Bastards, a Cincinnati trio on Fat Possum Records, took the stage for their brief half-hour set, I realized that I could actually hear each of their instruments distinctly, vocalist Erika Wennerstrom’s voice cutting easily over the mix. And gladly so; her voice, smoky and low like that of Cat Power or Pittsburgh native Julie Sokolow, was quite something to hear. The only shame of The Heartless Bastards was a definite lack of energy on the rest of the band’s part. Wennerstrom was kicking into her music as she wailed, but bassist Mike Lamping and drummer Kevin Vaughn (who sort of reminded me of Russel Hobbs, the animated drummer of Damon Albarn’s virtual band, Gorillaz), just sort of hung out. If a band wants me to stop talking to my friend beside me and get into their music, the least they can do is get into their music themselves. Still, they sounded fine and didn’t make me want to leave, so I consider them a success as far as opening bands good.

Of course, what I expect of a headliner, especially one demanding almost forty bucks a pop, is a bit more. And Wilco certainly delivered on that. As they came out on stage, the packed arena went wild, following suit with the first strum of a chord at the beginning of every single song. I felt a little out of the loop, really, not being a huge fan of the band myself, and by the end of the show was ready to snap up their entire discography. It would have been nice to sing along when Jeff Tweedy turned the microphone around toward the crowd for the chorus of one of the last songs. Still, it didn’t injure my enjoyment in the slightest—the music itself was enough to keep me enthralled.

Like with The Heartless Bastards, the quality of Wilco’s mixing was to die for. Every note, no matter how subtle, could be heard. The wavering lap steel, the shredding electric guitar (and holy hell, do I mean shredding), the twinkling piano—everything had its place and it was all coming through the enormous (but not brain-crushing) PA crystal clear. I’d say it sounded just like their studio recordings, but I’d be lying.

It was better.

The songs I have from them on my computer (mostly from Being There, a few from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) gave me a very Grateful Dead feel, with it’s focus cemented on folk-country, lightly-picked guitars and gentle harmonies. So naturally, that’s what I sort of expected seeing them live. But live, Wilco is a rock band. All the parts that made up the songs I’d heard were there but beefed up to a level that I did not know Wilco was even aware of. It was not the simple alt-country I’d expected, but straight out rock ‘n’ roll with searing edges of psychedelica and even noise-rock. More than once between songs the band vamped on distortion that would have made Sonic Youth jealous.

I’m sure that if I were more familiar with their back catalogue, or had seen them live previously as most of the people in the arena obviously had, I’d have been less surprised at what their performance held in store. But I was glad that I had no idea. I might not have been able to sing the words with everyone else, but I got to experience Wilco in a way different than most people in the arena could not—introduced to something completely new and wonderful, even in the songs I thought I knew.

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