On ‘Wilco Wednesday,’ Tweedy and Co. show how it’s done

It was “Wilco Wednesday” in Omaha on Nov. 20 as the band returned to the state for the second time in a little more than two years.

The band last played an outdoor venue in Lincoln (Wilco launches fall tour), and this time, took its show indoors for a concert at the ornate Orpheum Theater. The band played several songs from its latest album, “Ode to Joy,” while still managing to touch on every era of its career.

The new album is moody and introspective, a showcase for vocalist Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics and Glenn Kotche’s drumming. Songs like concert openers “Bright Leaves” and “Before Us” chug along like the trains from Tweedy’s childhood. The singer’s father worked on the railroad, a topic he writes about in his recent autobiography “Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back).”

Photos by Christopher Windle.

But the show really picked up steam when Wilco played songs off its masterpiece, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” The audience sang along with “Jesus, Etc.,” “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,”
and “War On War,” a song the band had skipped playing at its last show in the state.

Around the middle of the set, Wilco threw in another highlight it hadn’t played before, the thrilling “Bull Black Nova.” Fittingly, it played the track about vehicular manslaughter right after another dark song, the dreams-of-murder ballad “Via Chicago.”

There were less moody moments, too, like when Tweedy put his guitar aside for the upbeat “Hummingbird,” or when guitarist Nels Cline let loose on “Impossible Germany,” playing a solo somehow different from but still as great as the one on record.

Most of the last third of the show consisted of “rock songs,” including recent single “Everyone Hides,” “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” and a rousing “Misunderstood.”

Despite already having played 26 songs, the band came back for an encore: “I’m Always In Love,” “California Stars,” and “The Late Greats.”

It was “Wilco Wednesday,” as Tweedy said, “like taco Tuesday, but with Wilco.”

But it was much more than that. It was a brilliant show by a band that has been around for 25 years and just keeps on delivering.