Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Wilco - 2015-07-17 - Pitchfork Festival - Chicago, IL

Wilco
2015-07-17
Pitchfork Music Festival
Union Park, Chicago, IL

Audio taken from live webstream video, excellent quality
mp3 @ 320 kbps

In honor of Wilco's surprise release of their fine new album (and available for free download! see post below), Star Wars, let's feature some Wilco, shall we? Wilco, of course, lead by Jeff Tweedy's songwriting, vocals, and overall style, and featuring the crack musical chops of the rest of the band, may not have reached great commercial success, but are highly respected and critically acclaimed, and have an avid and knowledgeable fan base. I consider Wilco to be one of the premier American rock bands around, always doing something ineteresting, always worthwhile to listen to, and always putting on great live shows, and last year Jeff Tweedy and company celebrated their 20th year as a band.Wilco has released 9 studio albums over that time (including Star Wars, but not counting some collaborations and side projects, such as the Mermaid Ave collaborations with Billy Bragg and Tweedy's solo album, Tweedy), all of them very good and showing various forms of stylistic changes and growth as they began as an alt-country offshoot of Uncle Tupelo and developed into a more experimental, idiosyncratic, and alternative rock band of the highest order. Which albums are favorites depends on which period and style one is most attrcted to, with Being There (1996) considered the high point of the early more countryish style, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) their most successful and acclaimed alt-rock, or some of their more eclectic gems, like Sky Blue Sky (2007) or The Whole Love (2011). Fortunately, it is very easy to hear live shows from Wilco, as their are many avenues available. The band has an open taping policy and actively encourages fans to trade and share audience recordings of their shows. The band also sells soundboard recordings of many shows as dowmnloads from their website store, and also features several entire live shows available for streaming at no charge. There also are several fan sites that feature many live shows available for free download and/or streaming. So, with all these opportunities to listen to Wilco shows (I'll list some of the best online resources below), I don't need to post much here, but I did want to post just a few things to get started with. So, here is a very recent show, where they premiered their new album in its entirety, the day after the album was released on the internet. So, this show featured the brand new album straight through, the first time these songs played live anywhere. This was at the Pitchfork Music Festival, which was in Wilco's own home town, Chicago, IL. In addition to the new album, the set featured many classic and favorite songs from the Wilco catalog for a wonderful show. Better yet, video of the entire show was streamed live on the web. This is audio taken from that live webstream. Hopefully, since this was broadcast, it is alright for me to make available here. So, anyway, enjoy this show (and if you look around, can probably find the video, too), and be sure to check out some of the other Wilco sites mentioned here.

OK, so here are some of the top Wilco resources to hear more of their great music and shows:

Wilco's official website: wilcoworld.net
official news and info, plus some entire shows for audio streaming, and many shows available for purchase in lossless and mp3 (Roadcase series) through their online store

Fan sites
For general info and discussion of Wilco, their music, and live shows: viachicago.org
For Streaming audio of many Wilco shows: sooutoftune.org

For downloading audience tapes of Wilco shows:
Live Wilco Archive: owlandbear.com/wilco-archive/
(hundreds of wilco shows available in lossless. However, only goes up to 2013 at present)
For some more recent (and classic) Wilco shows: nyctaper.com
(has several more recent shows from 2014 and 2015, as well older, classic shows

Pitchfork Festival set
Tracklist:
[Tracks 1-11: "Star Wars" album in entirety (live debut)]
1. EKG (on tape)
2. More... 
3. Random Name Generator 
4. The Joke Explained 
5. You Satellite 
6. Taste the Ceiling 
7. Pickled Ginger 
8. Where Do I Begin 
9. Cold Slope 
10. King of You 
11. Magnetized 

12. Handshake Drugs 
13. Camera 
14. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart  (minor skip at 1:38 due to transmission glitch)
15. Art of Almost 
16. Via Chicago 
17. Impossible Germany 
18. Red-Eyed and Blue 
19. I Got You (At the End of the Century) 
20. Outtasite (Outta Mind) 
21. Heavy Metal Drummer 
22. I'm the Man Who Loves You 


Wilco_2015-07-17_Pitchfork Festival.rar

Link updated 07/03/20


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