‘Where Do I Begin’: Wilco at the State Theatre

COURTESY OF BRIAN DUDLA

By the time Wednesday night swung around, a day of abstract classes and abject meetings had left me feeling like my spirit had been ripped from my body and like my body was dejectedly content with walking from thing to revolving thing out of obligation or boredom, rather than necessity or desire. So when the clock ticked away my day’s final compulsion, I was more than ready to book it down to the commons in the hope that Wilco would be able to concoct a sound or two that’d staple my mind and body back together again — and maybe even convince them to get along for awhile. I picked up my ticket (I attended solo) and located my seat a few rows back from the stage — to the left of which was situated a commandingly large armrest-commondeerer, and to the right of which was an empty chair, which remained conspicuously devoid of life for the entire night. I sat back into my seat’s cushion, and, in waiting for the opener, devoted some time to scrutinizing the backs of my hands and the oppressively full State Theatre. The former were unremarkable and a little hazy in the slightly dimmed lights and synesthetic confusion of some 2,000 voices chattering.

Test Spin: Wilco

Wilco’s seventh studio LP, Wilco (The Album), channeling its eponymous title, spins as a consolidation of singer / songwriter Jeff Tweedy’s oeuvre. Congealing alt-country, quasi-experimental and neo-folk, the album genre-blazes across the band’s decade-and-a-half creative trajectory.