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?

I don’t know if it was all the movies that have been made about ten year high school reunions or the childhood memories of my father and stepmother talking about them as though they were some sort of social milestone, but I was expecting mine to be some sort of monumental thing.

All right, maybe monumental isn’t the right word. Maybe I was just looking for some sort of gratification. That on this date, ten years after high school, I could somehow gauge how much I’ve grown as a person by spending a weekend with the people I hung around with ten years ago. Cause, let’s be honest, that’s really why most people go to ten-year reunions; we want the people who knew us as awkward, insecure, pimple-faced adolescents to see how much we’ve grown up, changed, and turned into better people.

In our society today, right or wrong, ten-year reunions are sort of this litmus test as to whether or not a person you grew up with has become successful or not. I’m not saying this is fair or even correct, I’m just saying that’s the perception for a lot of people.

Cause let’s face it; odds are if you aren’t at least sort of your way to doing something productive by the time you’re 28, you’re not likely going to be, especially if you’re from small town Iowa. People in small town Iowa have usually chosen one of two paths by the time they’re ten years removed from high school; You have the people that have likely gone to college, found a job they like for the most part, have perhaps moved out of town, traveled a bit, some have gotten married and had kids, some have not, and they’re generally happy. Or you’ve got that people that didn’t get any education after high school, and in turn taken a job they don’t really like out of necessity, they’ve probably knocked up or got knocked up by someone before marriage, and in turn bought a house and car they probably can’t afford, they work so much to pay for the house/kid/car that they barely even get to spend any time with their family, and are generally unhappy about the whole scenario.

Those are the two camps of people have you have in Southwest Iowa. And I noticed people from the latter group usually do not attend high school reunions. I’m not sure why this is actually. It’s either because they genuinely don’t give a shit, or they’re aware of the fact they’re not happy, and they realize they’re lives are a mess and they don’t want the other people in their class who are perhaps more content judging them on it. (That also kind of goes back to the whole reason people hated high school in the first place, the fact that you’re being judged by your peers).

Basically it comes down to a security issue; People who are generally more secure in the contentment of their lives are more apt to attend a reunion than people who aren’t.

Needless to say, my reunion provided me with none of this aforementioned gratification. It was all pretty anticlimactic, really. Most everybody that showed had pretty much turned into the people I imagined they’d turn into ten years ago. For the most part, the guys I played sports with were either married with children and stopped having a social life, or obnoxious drunks working construction jobs. The bookish girls I worked with in newspaper and yearbook had good jobs, good boyfriends/husbands, a job in their field of study, and were generally happy.

The outcasts were still outcasts, though a couple had grown into pretty interesting people (which is usually the case; see almost every artist/actor/musician).

And of course, the attractive/cool girls that ignored me in high school still ignored me.

Nobody in our class (at least that showed) had gotten rich or famous. None of us had come even remotely close.

I suppose looking back on it we were a pretty predictable bunch.

The turnout was pretty low as well. Only about 50 people out of our class of 270 came. There were lots of people I was really hoping to see that were no-shows (mostly the guys I played sports with).

This, of course, was one of the most disappointing things of the whole weekend. I went truly hoping that I’d be able to get drunk one more time with a bunch of the guys I used to romp with back in the day.

There was never really that, “wow, so and so has really changed!” moment. In some respects, in an albeit vein way, I’d kinda hoped some of those comments would come my way. I’d changed quite a bit from my days as sort of an oafish, naive jock who had a very poor sense of style, did poorly with the girls and cared more about lifting weights than reading. Something I’m not necessarily ashamed of, but something I nonetheless wanted people to see that I wasn’t anymore.

That moment never really came. I got some compliments (and of course, I gave out lots of compliments — most everybody that I saw seemed to be doing fairly well for themselves). But there wasn’t that glorifying Hollywood moment were one of the super hot girls from my grade came up to me and was like, “Damn, Jeremy, you look great! And you seem so cultured and engaging! I’m filled with ache and regret that I blew you off in high school and now you’ve grown on to bigger and better things and I don’t have a chance with you anymore!”

But who the fuck am I kidding? It’s always that bullshit overly romanticized version of the way I think things should be that ruins moments like these for me.

Personally, I had really only two simple goals to accomplish at this point in my life: to be making a living off writing and to not be living in the Council Bluffs Omaha area.

Check on both.

(It should be noted that I have a firm understanding of the fact that these two accomplishments aren’t necessarily earth-shattering successes; I’m not trying to make it sound like I’m some rags-to-riches story by any means. I’m just saying that I accomplished the two very meager things I’d hoped to accomplish by this point in my life. Also, by making getting out of the C.B./Omaha area a goal in life does not mean I’m an effete snob that thinks still living back there would make me a loser. I just think it’s fairly important to me to try to experience as many new things in my life as possible, and making some place else my home for a while is a big part of that. I loved my time in Omaha and love my friends and family that still live there.)

Part of me had wished that some of my former teachers and coaches were there, too. That’s where the ultimate gratification would have come in; if my old football coach or journalism instructor would have been there to tell me that they were proud of what I had become.

Again, who the fuck and I kidding? Coach Wahl, last I heard, is in the midst of an epic mid-life crisis, and Mrs. Smoley probably doesn’t even remember me.

I suppose, all in all, it was a positive experience. I realized that, for the most part, the folks I cared about (those who showed and who didn’t) were doing pretty well. That thankfully, not many of us had passed (though the one most recent death was utterly tragic), that only one of us had been known to be charged with a felony (white collar crime, and it looks like he’s getting off on it) and that everybody seemed to be happy enough.

That got me to thinking. You know, they give all those ambitious, grandiose speeches at high school graduations in which we’re told that that the sky’s the limit, that we should shoot for the stars, and the world’s ours if we want it. Really, I think they should lower the bar on such speeches, or at least make them more realistic. The world’s a tough place. The majority of the people you graduate likely won’t become anything exceptional. The ones that do go out and get an education, and maybe land a great job, are still probably pretty insignificant. Almost none of us are going to change the world in any tangible way. But we can strive to simply be content with our lives, no matter how average or simple they may be.

Being around a group of people I sat through those ridiculous speeches ten years ago with, I realized that’s all that really mattered.