Wilco (The Festival)

Also, I have a song on my iTunes of Wilco and My Morning Jacket covering "Don't Fear the Reaper" in Louisville on 06/30/2005. So, it has happened before. However, I'm not banking on it, just because they're roughly on a par with Wilco in terms of popularity, so they would probably have to headline as well. Also, if you look at their tour dates, that would mean they would have to perform on either the 13th or 14th, fly out to Colorado for the 15th, and then head back to Massachusetts again for the 19th. That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.


I am hoping for a Loose Fur set though.

He might not have played on the last record, but he played with them on the last tour in '06. 'Twas a great show.

I don't think there's any hard feelings there, it's just that he hasn't had time for the Smog since Wilco took off. But if ever there were a better excuse to round up the guys, I can't imagine what it would be.

This much is true.

Down by the Old Mainstream

schedule posted:

solidsoundfestival.com/pages/schedule.php

now that the schedule is out i'm glad I didn't get tickets. I was under the impression it'd be 2 nights of wilco and while the Jeff Tweedy show will probably be stellar........idk.....I can't get as excited for this one as I was when I first heard of it. Def some good acts tho

There's a new Mavis Staples song (written by Tweedy) on the Solid Sound site:

solidsoundfestival.com/

It's the last song on the player, you might have to scroll down a bit.

Really hoping Tweedy sits in on her Lolla set.

Jeff Tweedy (solo) > Wilco, these days.

I'm packing up and getting ready to drive out to MA! Soooooo excited!

Seriously one of the best musical events I've ever had the pleasure of attending. It was a small fest, with only about 5,000 people there. They staggered the schedule so that none of the bands overlapped at all, which was great - the comedy acts on Saturday conflicted with the music, but that was it. Also, the museum itself was really cool. They had some awesome modern art on display, which I spent a couple hours checking out Sunday morning before the music got underway. In addition to the regular art, they also had some fantastic Wilco-related exhibits: a display of Pat Sansone's Polaroids, a gallery of past Wilco concert posters, a fun, interactive collection of guitar pedals all hooked up to a single speaker, and a similar interactive exhibit of drum heads and cymbals. Nels gave a lecture on the pedal exhibit (though I missed that to see Vetiver and On Fillmore), while Glenn led a guided tour through the drum exhibit (which I did get to see). After the tour, Glenn did a meet-and-greet with the 50 or so people in attendance. I got to have a short chat with him afterwards - even though some band assistant (manager?) kept telling him he had to go and get set up for the show, he kept insisting on staying and chatting with the fans for a little while longer. He seemed genuinely apologetic when he had to go and get set up.

I had two random encounters over the weekend - on Saturday, I was eating lunch and two young hippie women and an elderly man (with an epic beard, I might add) asked if they could steal one of the chairs from my table - I told them to go right ahead. A couple hours later, Mountain Man came on stage and I was like, "hot damn, that was them!" The other one was during Outrageous Cherry on Sunday, when I noticed an all-access pass out of the corner of my eye, and turned to see none other than Nels Cline standing five feet to my right. Every five minutes or so, someone would come up and ask for an autograph, and he was very gracious about it. I don't really care much for autographs, but I shook his hand between songs and said "thank you for a phenomenal show last night". I thought it was really cool that he was just chilling in the crowd when he could have easily been backstage and not getting harassed by fans.

The music was fantastic, of course. The surprise highlights for me included Pronto (Mikael Jorgensen side project) and The Autumn Defense (John Stirratt and Pat Sansone side project). I was expecting Mavis Staples to be great, but she far exceeded my expectations. The highlight of her set was when she covered "The Weight," and then invited Jeff Tweedy on stage for the next two songs. It was a sit-in that everybody knew was going to happen (he produced her latest album, so it was practically a given), but still awesome to see nevertheless.

They also had a dunk tank for charity, and I enjoyed watching Mikael Jorgensen get soaked repeatedly . I made some great vinyl scores, as well as a graphic novel interpretation of some Bob Dylan songs. Despite the earlier forecasts of thunderstorms all three days, there was some light rain early Sunday afternoon for about 20 minutes and then again during the second half of Jeff's closing set, but nothing too severe. Apparently this was the first fest of anywhere near that scope at Mass MoCA, and I really hope they do it again with some other bands in the future. Plus, any fest that has two different types of Magic Hat on tap is a winner in my book .