Update Wilco Show

Ok, I've had a normal day today, just went to work all day and worked eleven hours, so I feel rested as compared to the last three days. So I'm going to try and update the last three days and night, I don't know how much I'll finish tonight, 24 comes on in thirty minutes and I have to stop to watch that. I guess that means I should get started.

We'll start with Thursday night and the Wilco show. Left work early, at one today.I had to drive across the lake to the Westbank to meet my brother who was going with me to the show. I figured I'd stop at Borders on my way and check out the new cds and books. I got home and got online to check the prices for Jazzfest. Today was the last day to get tickets for $25, starting tommorrow, the day of the Fest they went up to $35. So I went ahead and ordered three tickets, one for me for Friday and two for Saturday - my brother was supposed to go with me Saturday. I decided to try something I've never had the nerve to do before, print the tickets from my computer. I've always worried that something would happen and the tickets wont' print and than I'm stuck. Also I've started saving my ticket stubs, I purchased this ticket album online, it's like a photo album but the pages are made to store tickets. Unfortunately I only thought of this in the last year or so, I've thrown away soooo many tickets that I wish I had today. A friend suggested I should try to list all the concerts I've seen, I may try that one day, just to see who I've seen.

So I buy the tickets and go to print them. The computer says error. See I think, it's going to happen. To make this story shorter it turns out that I had an old version of Adobe Acrobat and needed to download the new version to print up the tickets. After that it all worked out great and I ended up with three pages of tickets to the Fest.

Next I headed out to the Westbank. At New Orleans East in front of the Mall there was an accident and it took almost twenty minutes to get by. I got to Borders. I was able to find Maria McKee's newest cd which Best Buy in Slidell didn't have. It's called Peddler's Dreams and is very good.

I got to my brothers and found he had changed the lock on his door. I've always had a key to his house, but I tried all my keys, twice thinking I was missing it, but no key unlocked the door. Luckily I was able to go in his back yard and sit on his bench back there and read the Offbeat Bible for the Jazzfest.

Once he got home we went to get something to eat and than headed to the concert. One thing that anyone that knows me will tell you is that I had to be late. I am early for everything. The concert started at 8, so we were there before 7. We weren't exactly sure where the State Palace was but it was pretty easy to find. We also found a parking garage right around the corner from the site. It was a strange garage, most of it was reserved, but we finally found a spot.

We stood in line for over an hour. Around 8 someone came out and asked who had floor tickets. It was general admission, seperated between floor and balcanoy. We had floor tickets. She came by and punched a hole in our ticket and told us that someone else would be coming by asking for floor tickets and we were to show them our tickets and they would give us a id bracelet. Why they had to punch the ticket first I don't know? Why couldn't they just give us the id bracelet?

It was after 8 when they finally let us in. The State Palace is one of those old movie theaters from the 30s and 40s. The floor had seats about 3/4s of the way up and than a rail and the rest was floor space. We managed to get front row seats in the far left corner.

After we sat I had to go back and check what was for sale. They had a tour poster for the State Palace show, I love getting tour posters for shows I go to. So many bands don't sell them. I've got two for Dylan shows and one for a Springsteen show. So I knew I had to get it. They also had a t shirt for the tour. But of course they didnt' take debit or credit cards. But normally this isn't a problem, everyplace has an atm. Well, not everyplace. The State Palace doesn't. I had thirty dollars, the t shirt was $25 and the poster was $20. So I ran back to my brother and asked him how much cash he had. He had enough to loan me the twenty I needed. So I got my poster and t shirt.

Ok, you're wondering, this is all great and all, but what about the concert? Their opening act was Healthy White Baby which was pretty good. It was a two person group, a guy and girl. I didn't realize until after the show that the girl was the twin sister of John Stirrat, the guitarist from Wilco. She was a member of Blue Mountain. Her music with Baby was nothing like that of Blue Mountain, it was closer to style of Wilco.

Than finally Wilco came on. To say I've been waiting a long time for this show is an understatement. I've mentioned before I missed out on their show last year because Jeff checked himself into rehab.

They started out with Muzzle of Bees and than went into At Least Thats What You Said. They did about four songs with a word from Jeff on stage. Which was cool, I mean, I was there for the music, but I like the singer to talk some, I don't like concerts where the songs are identical to the record, if that's what I wanted I could just listen to the record. I want to hear their interpation of the songs, their mistakes even, make it real, make it come alive.

But after about four songs Jeff started talking. He said this was his first Wilco show smoke free. He was giving up smoking. He said his butt had about 17 patches on it. He said he went swimming the other day and he looked like a quilt.

At one point in the show he stopped and looked down in the audience and asked "Are you all right?" Evidently someone looked faint to him. He told the person, a girl, that she could come up on stage and get some water. She must have been embarassed because she didnt' do it. He joked about it, but told her to be careful. He really sounded like he was worried about her. He did the typical "How is everyone out there tonight" right after that, but than said that they were probably the first rock band that asked that that was sincere about it.

He looked like he was having a good time up there. They did the entire A Ghost Is Born cd (see I was going to say album, but I'm learning) except for Less (you know the song with all the noise). They also did a lot of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I was thinking they weren't going to do anything older, when they launched into A Shot In The Arm. Than when they came back on for their encore they did Kingpin, Misunderstood and Outasite.

They've definitely become a guitar band, wailing away at their guitars. They ended with Thunderclap Newman's song Something In The Air. It was great!

The concert was awesome. It lasted a little over two hours and every minutes of it was great.

We had no problem getting out and back over to my brothers house. I had about an hours drive ahead of me. The drive home was hard, I was getting pretty sleepy but I made it. I was thinking though I had to get up early to meet Larry for Jazzfest tommorrow. And that's another update for later, 24 is coming on.