Live Review: Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy in San Francisco: Aidin Vaziri | Tweedy has a bit of a reputation as a live performer. Just a few nights earlier he had told off a chatty Portland audience, "Can you shut up for once in your f -- life?" And it seemed like the news had spread to San Francisco. No one said a word as the singer strummed through nearly a half-dozen hushed tunes before finally looking up: "I have a question for the bartenders." Uh-oh. "When we're getting rid of the beer bottles can we cradle them into the trash?" he said. "Ease them in as if they were your children and you were putting them to bed?" Pause. "No? OK." Just as it felt as if we were watching a dramatic re-enactment of Dylan's infamous Judas concert, Tweedy broke into a huge smile and the audience erupted with him. Like that, Tweedy cast aside his status as a furrow-browed, overly intellectual songwriter with a serious Faulkner fixation. Actually, the description still fits, but he's also so much more: part comedian, part literary satirist, all showman. Without an album or any other specific piece of merchandise to promote (Wilco is setting off on a proper tour in the spring behind its recent live release, "Kicking Television"), this solo acoustic show, the first of two, was all about the music. Tweedy delighted in transforming song after song from his band's wildly experimental back catalog into a stripped-down folk ballad, baring every ironic twist and barbed emotion. He seemed to take equal pleasure in trying out bad one-liners on a captive audience: "I can't see you, but you're beautiful. Just like the Internet."
posted by Aidin at Monday, February 13, 2006
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