Category: Music

Wilco – Bentonville, AR (05/02/26)

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Wilco is one of my favorite bands. I’ve seen them more times in concert than any other artist by far. Not that this is a great accomplishment, I don’t actually go to that many concerts. But I catch Wilco every chance I can.

They seem to love playing at the Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. We’ve seen them (or Jeff Tweedy solo) there half a dozen times. When they announced their most recent tour a few months back, they did not list Tulsa as a stop, but they were playing Bentonville, which is only about a two-hour drive from where I live. I immediately bought tickets.  Naturally, about two weeks later they announced they were playing Tulsa in July.

I looked at my wife and asked, “Are we going to see Wilco twice this summer?”  We bought tickets. My sister and her husband will be in town then, flying in from South Korea, and we bought them tickets too.

The Bentonville show was an outdoor gig and general admission. There was a time when I’d show up to a show well before the doors opened, hoping to score those great seats.  But I’m old now, and the idea of standing for two hours before a show and then another couple during the show is just too much for my back to take. 

We left about five for a show that started at eight. I figured that would be plenty of time to get there and even have a bit to eat on our way. We arrived about 7:30 and found a great long line. That was annoying because we had three lawn chairs, just as many blankets, plus a pillow, and some other stuff. Security was nice, but they made us open up our lawn chairs and open up my wife’s purse. 

Because everyone brought their own chairs, things were a little haphazard. Mostly people put them in straight lines, but there were large gaps and spaces everywhere. This meant we had to sit quite a ways into the back. We were maybe twenty yards behind the soundboard and off to the side.  Behind us was a small hill, which meant there was a walkway between it and us. The rest of the venue was pretty flat, which made it hard to see the stage.The sound back that far wasn’t great. It was really kind of distant, making the show sound like it was taking place someplace else.

I set all that up to say that the crowd was kind of obnoxious. I understand people are going to talk at a concert. I mean, I don’t get it, I don’t know why anyone pays a lot of money to see a band and then acts like they are just background music for their stupid conversation. But I understand that’s just the way it is. But this show was out of hand.  

There were two dudes behind us, sitting on that hill, that loudly talked through every song.  One lady came in late and sat beside my daughter. She literally turned her seat away from the band so she could chat with her friend.  A whole gang of folks gathered behind the soundboard, acting like they were at a bar, not a concert.

I do think the outdoor venue, the way we were all haphazardly positioned in our own chairs, and the poor sound quality at that contributed to all of this.

The music was good. The setlist was great. They opened with “Via Chicago” and then went into “Handshake Drugs.” The first set was a nice mix of newer songs and some old ones. Bassist John Stirratt even sang “It’s Just That Simple” off of their first album, AM. It ended with “California Stars”, one of my favorites.

I did my best to enjoy the music and not be annoyed by the talkers.  Sometimes I’d close my eyes and just try to listen.  It didn’t always work. I remember thinking this might be the worst concert I’ve ever been to.  Which sucked, because, like I said, the music was good.

At the set break, my daughter went to the bathroom, bought a drink, and then looked at the merch. On our way back to our seats, we noticed some open spaces much closer to the stage. We grabbed our chairs, explained everything to my wife, and, like the Jeffersons, “moved on up.”

What a difference that made.

The sound was so much better. The audience was much more into it. There were still a few talkers, but the sound drowned them out. The band was on fire. The setlist was off the charts good. They played songs from just about every album they’ve made and concentrated on the older ones. 

“Impossible Germany” was impossibly good. I’m a Nels Cline maniac. When we see them at Cain’s, I always stand on the Nels side of the stage. There is always a point where I turn to my wife and go, “Nels Fucking Cline!” On songs like “Impossible Germany” he tends to go crazy. He’ll launch into these frenzied solos where he just strums super fast and the band creates feedback behind him.  I love it.  But this time he played real solos. It reminded me a lot of the Jerry Garcia Band, where he was jamming, but it was still within the rhythm of the song. It was fantastic.

Jeff seemed in good spirits.  He chatted amiably and even had some short convos with the crowd.  The crowd was pretty laid-back. There wasn’t a lot of whooping and hollering.  During “Kingpin” there is a section where the crowd usually screams in response to Jeff singing “How Can I?” but here they were silent.  Jeff even joked with them about it, but it was a no go.

I suspect the cold had something to do with that.  It was quite chilly, and most of us were huddled under blankets. And the crowd seemed like they were maybe not huge fans.  The big songs off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot got a lot of cheers, but the rest of the songs got claps, but nothing super enthusiastic.

But I was loving it. This show went from one of my least favorite concerts ever in the first set to one of my absolute favorite gigs in the second.  

If you are a fan I highly recommend checking them out this tour.

Here’s the setlist:

Set 1:

Via Chicago
Handshake Drugs
If I Ever Was a Child
Cruel Country
Forget the Flowers
Evicted
Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull
I’m Always in Love
Everyone Hides
Hummingbird
It’s Just That Simple
You and I
War on War
Falling Apart (Right Now)
California Stars

Set 2:
Box Full of Letters
Annihilation
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
One Wing
Either Way
Love Is Everywhere (Beware)
Impossible Germany
Jesus, Etc.
The Universe
Hate It Here
Walken
Kingpin
Heavy Metal Drummer
I’m the Man Who Loves You

Encore:
The Late Greats
I Got You (At the End of the Century)
Outtasite (Outta Mind)

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Tulsa, OK (04/29/26)

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I got to see Gillian Welch and David Rawlings last night. It was wonderful. I’d seen them before several years ago in Memphis. It was one of my favorite concert experiences ever. It was in a small auditorium. The crowd was reverent. Not a soul spoke a word. The music was transcendent.

Last night was a free outdoor concert at the Guthrie Green. That’s a nice patch of grass in the middle of downtown Tulsa. My guess was the crowd would be more rowdy. Free would bring random folks interested in a fun night out. Outdoors, mean people would feel more free to talk and play. Plus there would be all sorts of downtown, city noises.

It turned out to be mostly reserved. It was a nice-sized crowd, but not overflowing. I guess a midweek show kept some people away. Those who were there all seemed to come to hear Gillian and Dave. Periodically I’d hear people talking, and every now and again someone would stand in front of me to get a picture. For the first set there was a food truck, or maybe one of the local bars, playing some kind of bass-thumping music at high volume nearby. That was obnoxious, especially during the quieter songs. But Dave’s big guitar playing usually drowned it out, and it seemed to stop by the second set.

We got a good seat just off to the side of the soundboard with a clear view. The sound was good. The performance was resplendent.

They started with a beautiful rendition of “Elvis Presley Blues”. That was the first Gillian Welch song I ever heard. I still remember when I heard it. I was driving down from Bloomington, IN, to where my wife’s folks lived, about an hour south. It came on the local independent radio station, and I was absolutely struck by it. My wife was riding down in her car because she was staying longer than I was. When we arrived, we both got out and asked each other if we’d heard that song.

The first set mostly stuck to the new songs (from the wonderful Woodland album) and a lot of Dave Rawlings songs that I wasn’t ultra-familiar with (but were still great.)

At some point they brought out the banjo, and David quipped that the show had started properly then. But it was out of tune, so Gillian talked while David tuned. I say she talked, but she admitted she didn’t really have anything to say. That she wasn’t good with banter. It was very awkward and cute.

They had a break and came back with a vengeance for the second set. As a couple, Gillian and Dave make the most wonderful harmonies. Their voices blend together in that magical way that only comes from spending years together with a fierce admiration for each other. David Rawlings is an underrated and absolutely brilliant guitarist. “Revelator” is another one of my favorite songs, and David’s guitar work just roared.

They talked a little about how they visited both the Bob Dylan Center and the Woody Guthrie one. Dave joked that he had a hard time deciding which artist’s song he should play to honor them. He landed on Bob Dylan’s “Song for Woody Guthrie” which was both appropriate and awesome.

For the encore, they covered Doc Watson’s “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor” and then launched into a brilliant version of “Look at Miss Ohio” to which the entire audience sang along.

Then they played the Old Crow Medicine Show’s “I Hear Them All” which rolled into Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” Guthrie was from Oklahoma, and the Center is located not two blocks from our setting, and the crowd went nuts. They closed with a delightful sing-along of the old gospel tune “I’ll Fly Away.”

It was a beautiful (if a bit chilly) night with clear skies and a big full moon rising just above the stage. The setting was perfect and the music was divine.

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Listen to The New Riders of the Purple Sage perform “Six Days On the Road” in 1971

I’m still playing around with these shows in history posts. I’m having a lot of fun uploading single songs to YouTube. Right now I’m just picking out a show from this day, finding a song I like and putting it up. If I get good at this I may do more, or have more to say about it.

Unless the powers that be start taking me down. But for now this is fun. I hope you enjoy.