Last year, Wilco surprised its fans with a new album, Star Wars, available for free. Since that release, they have started their shows by playing the whole album. Not a couple of songs sprinkled through the set, but the whole album in the order that the songs appear on the record. This isn’t showy or self-centered; I think musicians are at their best when they are playing something they are proud of. The band is rightly proud of this record and ultimately they have earned their audience’s trust. As such, the concerts for the past eight or nine months have developed into three acts: Act I: Star Wars; Act II: 10-12 songs from everywhere in their catalogue, with plenty of surprises; and, Act III, the encore. At The Orpheum on Saturday night, they were brilliant through the first two acts and saved the best for last.

As is the case with a lot of Wilco’s music, particularly after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, seeing them live gives you an appreciation of how tuned into sound they all are. For me, this was most poignant during “Magnetized,” when I saw Glenn Kotche was tapping his wedding ring on the rim of his snare drum. With a whole kit around him and every possible brush and stick, the right sound for the song was his ring. (There is, incidentally, and great episode of Song Exploder about “Magnetized”.) Wilco is often celebrated for the scope of their sound and the cacophonies they stir and stew together on stage. But at this show, I was drawn in by the smaller sounds which they pay at least as much, if not more, attention to: Kotche’s ring, for example, or in “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” bringing all of the action down to just his snare drum before two notes on a cymbal made us all catch our breath as the power chords came charging back through us; in “Art of Almost,” when the whole band stopped on a rest, bringing the whole theater silent, but just for an instant, and then Nels Cline destroyed the solo to end the song.

They included two softer songs, “You Are My Face,” and “Hummingbird” before tearing through one song after another that reaffirmed for me that this is the best rock band touring. It started with “Boxful of Letters” from the band’s debut album A.M. and then paired the classics from YHF, “Heavy Metal Drummer” and “I’m the Man Who Loves You.” It’s worth the price of admission just to hear Nels Cline’s solos on “Impossible Germany.” Tweedy looked over at him and smiled, shaking his head in clear admiration and the crowd let Nels hear it after the song. Toward the end of the “second act,” the band strung together three songs from Being There: “Red-Eyed and Blue,” “I Got You (At the End of the Century),” and “Outtasite (Outta Mind).” There were no real breaks in between the songs and were treated like a medley (on the album, “Red-Eyed and Blue” and “I Got You” flow into each other naturally). I felt like I could feel the floor moving and it seemed like the band fed off the audience’s clear appreciation for these tunes packaged together, building on the momentum with each song.

This was a sweet concert, in the sense that the band seemed at ease together. They traded warm smiles with each other after songs and solos; Kotche hugged a roadie for fixing a cymbal; Tweedy more than once showed his appreciation for the audience–and audiences have been known to get on his bad side. There were two young boys–maybe ten or twelve years old–in the row in front of me with their parents; they couldn’t see a thing, so an usher came and brought them down to the front row. It felt like the kind of room where everybody was on the same team.

Then the encore. Wow. The person next to me cried, it was so perfect and beautiful. The road crew quickly assembled a small group of microphones and the band played six songs acoustically, beginning with “Misunderstood.” Pat Sansone played banjo, leaned back with his legs crossed like he was sitting on a porch; Nels played a resonator dobro, and Mikael Jorgenson, normally on keys, played guitar and melodica. The highlight of the encore was the appreciation for John Stirratt after his performance of “It’s Just That Simple.” It was both applause for his singing and also for his decades-long service as the classy, steady, unsung hero of this band.

They closed with fantastic sing-a-longs of “California Stars” and “Shot in the Arm,” ending with those haunting words: “What you once were isn’t what you want to be – anymore.”

I felt very lucky to have been at this show. It felt like something unique and honest and affirming. It was both confident and humble; both raucous and meditative. I can’t think of another band that could do what they did tonight–spanning so many territories, genres, and decibels (including silence) in a single evening. What will they possibly do for their next act?

(photo by Michael Panico)