I admittedly don't have another performance to compare it to, but I have to imagine that Wilco's show on Wednesday, Sept. 12 at the Pritzker Pavilion will go down as one of their most charming shows, if not one of their flat-out best ever.

As lead singer Jeff Tweedy gushed on stage after the first couple songs, it was perfect. The weather. The Crowd. The overall atmosphere. There isn't a better place in the city — and there may only be a couple more places in the country — to see an intimate outdoor concert than Millennium Park. The acoustics for the venue are world class (it sounded like the band was playing in your living room, and it should, considering how much money the city spent on the place), the views, of both the large stage and skyline behind it, are spectacular. And, unlike indoor rock clubs, you weren't uncomfortably cramped in on top of one another and inhaling unhealthy amounts of second hand smoke.

Apparently Tweedy and Co. have wanted to play this venue for some time now, and it showed in their enthusiasm. At times it seemed like Tweedy were a giddy child getting to play in his dream playground for the first time. Rarely is a musician's excitement to be playing a particular show so palpable (especially from and independent artist).

The band ripped through an epic set that included a lot of material off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and recently-released Sky Blue Sky. Surprisingly missing were my two favorite songs off the album in-between those two releases, A Ghost is Born's Theologians and I'm a Wheel.

They also dipped heavily into Summer Teeth and a lot of their early material, of which I'm not overly familiar with.

Part of the reason I'm not overly familiar with that material is that I've always found straight forward alt country pretty dull, Wilco included. I've really tried getting into Being There and A.M., but I always end up just falling back on Yankee Hotel and select tracks from the other three albums they've put out since 1999.

That said, I was much more impressed by the early material live than I was with it on record. Live the material comes off more like assertive rock than the softer, watered-down way it comes off on record. The sound was bigger, the tempo was faster and the music just seemed to have more kick.

The tracks they played from Yankee Hotel were as mesmerizing as they are on record. With two different musicians working keyboards and synths, they were able to recreate the haunting sonic experimentation of the album (thought I bet much of that had to do with the acoustics as well — in any other outdoor venue much of that sound would likely have been lost).

Perhaps what was the most amazing aspect of the show were the three encores and 2.5 hours they spent on stage, which was by far the longest I've ever see a single band play. At one point Tweedy even asked the crowd, "Are you still with us?"

Nobody was going anywhere.

After a final encore that included "Casino Queen" and "Outtasite (Outta Mind)," Tweedy, with the same boyish excitability he'd been playing with all night, ran up to the front of the stage to grab his two sons, and as he jogged back across the stage with one of them in tow, tripped over some cords and both crashed to the floor pretty violently. But he quickly bounced back up and waved and smiled to the crowd (and probably his wife) to let them know they were all right.

With the adrenaline of putting on such a great show surely rushing through him, it would have taken more than a spill on stage to wipe the grin off his face.


Of course, as we all left and were done gushing about the awesomeness we'd just experienced, the conversation drifted to why there aren't more shows like this at the Pritzker, which is traditionally used for choral, jazz and orchestra performances. Wilco was only the fourth rock act to play the stage since it was built in 2004.

It doesn't really make sense that there aren't at least a couple decent mainstream rock shows that play there once or twice a month in the spring summer and fall. Sure, 11,000 people may not pay to see a hometown act like Wilco (The Decemberists brought more people, but again, it was free), but even if 5-7,000 showed it would be worth it, as I can imagine the city's still trying to pay the development off (it went hundreds of millions of dollars over budget). Bands like the Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, The Flaming Lips, TV on the Radio and Spoon would be perfect to see at a venue like that. They'd appeal to a wide age group, and it's not likely those bands or their fans would cause any serious damage to the pristine venue.

Is any of the park staff listening?