I was fortunate enough, on the last night of my recent trip to Barcelona to see Wilco at a the city's beautiful opera house L'Auditori. The set list was picked by keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen whose birthday it was that night (and who the band had given him a cake with trick candles and got the audience to sing 'Happy Birthday' to) and Mikael picked some great tracks spanning many of their albums wiyh highlights including 'Kingpin'(off "Being There"), 'A Shot In The Arm' & 'Via Chicago'(from "Summerteeth"), 'Heavy Metal Drummer', 'Kamera' & 'Jesus, Etc' (from "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", 'Hummingbird' & 'At Least That's What You Said"(from "A Ghost Is Born"), and 'Impossible Germany' (from "Sky Blue Sky", with Nels Clines' guitarwork during the latter half of the song really getting the crowd going). Though the majority of the attendance seemed to be locals, Americans apparently punctuated the crowd, with one person declaring "I miss Chicago". But it was the Spaniards who showed some local flair at times with much of the crowd chanting at times the soccer "Ole, Ole" song, with Jeff Tweedy even challenging Americans in the crowd to bring that chant back to America. The enthusiasm of the Spaniards was contagious and made for a very enjoyable show, satisfying my Wilco fix for the moment (since my last time seeing them was late last year at the cavernous Air Canada Centre from the nosebleed section and I doubt I'll be making the trip to Lewiston, NY when the band play ArtPark on July 19). At various times, there were duelling guitars with Nels and Pat, drummer Glenn Kotche standing over his drumkit, and Jeff running in one place and swinging his mic incessantly (during 'Hummingbird'), a very active show all around. The band's new album "Wilco (the album)" is out June 30 through Nonesuch and you can stream the album here.
Photos: Wilco @ L'Auditori (Barcelona, Spain) - June 4, 2009
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