Wilco --- Kicking Television: Live in Chicago

[jason_t]

This new album, a 2 CD live effort, was released this morning. I just gave it my first listen and I must say that Wilco is clearly one of the greatest bands currently recording. The new album contains performances of tracks from Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born as well as others. The concert centerpiece is an amazing rendition of Spiders (Kidsmoke) which was preceeded by a flurry of awesome performances of tracks from one of the top five albums of the past ten years. Having never heard Wilco live, I expected to be unhappy with these performances of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tracks (the bar set by the studio performances is high) and not at all happy with the A Ghost is Born Tracks. The former were truly incredible and the latter gave me a new found appreciation for that album. This release was supposed to be accompanied by a DVD release but unfortunately it was postponed indefinitely.

[w_alloy]

Thanks for the review; I was going to wait to see what others said before I copped it, and this definitely is enough endorsement for me.

[casinogosain]

I went to a couple of these shows and am looking forward to the discs. Over the course of the two nights they must have played the contents of all of their released albums, and most of the songs from the new album (which had not yet been released).

-Ash

[coltrane]

I've seen them twice - most recently in April at JazzFest in New Orleans.....I remember they played on the first Thursday when it was mostly locals and not too crowded and they played the final slot at like 6pm-ish - it was outside and the sun was setting and the weather was beautiful and they sounded amazing and I was like 15 feet in front of Tweedy.....great great memory...

[private joker]

I saw them at the Greek when they opened for REM, and they were very good. Peter Buck came onstage to play a song with them, and they rocked the house. But it was outside, and some of the subtleties of their songwriting got lost, as well as the production gloss of the albums. I think for an emotional experience I still prefer listening to the album, but the live show was definitely solid and a nice primer for the mind-blowing REM show that followed.

(This was in 2003, before they released the pathetic Around the Sun and started mailing it in).

[sfer]

I saw them twice last year and they were terrific both times.