http://www.sonicnet.com/news/article1.jhtml?index=5 Wilco Debut New LP Live Amid Wash Of Technical Difficulties In-store appearance shows band delivering onstage renditions of tracks from Summer Teeth. Staff Writer Chris Nelson reports: CHICAGO -- Sometimes no amount of preparation can spare you from live performance gremlins. Case in point: Wilco's appearance at Tower Records on Clark Street Thursday. There was tension in the air. It was the band's first show since it released its well-received third album, Summer Teeth, earlier in the week. In their de facto hometown. For broadcast over WXRT-FM. The band's guitar tech arrived four-and-a-half hours early to begin setting up. A 6:50 p.m. soundcheck on "Passenger Side" and "Hesitating Beauty" revealed the band and its equipment in perfect form. Naturally, all that flew out the window at 8 p.m. when the band started blasting live out of home radios and car stereos throughout the nation's third largest city. A growing buzz, like the sound of bees swarming closer and closer, ran through the P.A. for the length of the 45-minute show. At times the silence between songs was sliced open by squeals of wince-inducing feedback. Some numbers were laced with unintentional whirs and whines. "I'm afraid I don't know what any of those weird sounds are," singer and guitarist Jeff Tweedy said at one point to the audience listening at home. "But if you like to see things blow up, come on down." The often self-deprecating Tweedy actually made it sound worse than it was. "This is an unmitigated disaster," he deadpanned later, before eventually cracking, "We'll do a few more songs here before we end up breaking up onstage." But despite the technical setbacks, Wilco proved they could render the dark, studio-oriented pop of Summer Teeth compellingly in a live setting. And on such adrenalized songs as "I Got You" from Being There and "California Stars" from last year's Mermaid Avenue collaboration with folk-rocker Billy Bragg, the triple-vocal attack of Tweedy, Jay Bennett (keyboards, guitar) and John Stirratt (bass) sent both the crowd and Tower's "Blank Tapes Specials" display rocking back and forth. Of course it was the Summer Teeth material that most came to hear. The album marks Wilco's definitive break with the alternative country movement (and with Tweedy's former group Uncle Tupelo), showcasing the band as innovative pop experimentalists. And while Tweedy has performed such songs as "She's A Jar" and "I'm Always in Love" (RealAudio excerpt) during recent solo acoustic shows, the Tower gig marked the first time many fans had heard the songs with the full band. "I don't think the album's as much of a departure as people think," said Elizabeth Stockton, 24, of Chicago. "I think it's like Being There with a much more focused feel. And that's what you want out of a great album, a really coherent feel." On Thursday, the small confines and live instrumentation cast some of the new material in a different light. "I'm Always In Love" was still a Velvet Underground-inspired rave-up, complete with the addition of Leroy Bach (who has worked with Liz Phair) on extra keyboards. But the album centerpiece, "Via Chicago" (RealAudio excerpt), took on a much more stable feel in the hands of the full band. In the past, when Tweedy stood solo and sang such disturbing lines as "I dreamed about killing you again last night/ and it felt alright to me," he bore sole responsibility for the song and its unsettling lyrics. In Tower, with Bennett and Stirratt standing at arms' length from Tweedy on the makeshift stage, the song was a group creation, and, as such, was less disconcerting. Still, Tweedy's closing harmonica work added a welcome edge, undercutting the warmth of the organ with skeletal notes that evoked the feel of a Neil Young guitar solo. "It's a far cry from where they were, but it's still Jeff Tweedy's songwriting," said Alex Millar, 26, of Chicago, before the show started. "I think ['Shot in the Arm'] is the finest song he's written since the Tupelo days." After the show, a video crew came in to shoot footage of the band signing autographs. "I don't know what we're going to do with it," Tweedy said of the video. "We're trying to film a lot [of the upcoming tour]." Meanwhile, Millar handed him a copy of the alternative country book "No Depression." Tweedy scrawled his name in black marker across the chapter on Wilco and then turned immediately apologetic, as he'd been throughout the show. "I signed across the words. I'm sorry, that was stupid," he said. But just like the audience during a feedback-tinged performance, Millar seemed not to mind at all.
