Jeff Tweedy
Queen’s Hall, edinburgh, January 31
One man and his mic’d up acoustic guitar, “singing songs to humans…”
ÒIT’s always good to look people in the eye and remind myself what it’s like to sing songs to humans,” says Jeff Tweedy, alone on the stage of a converted church in Edinburgh’s southside. There’s no hiding place for him here, nor is one sought. In a white Mountie’s hat and sloppy black T-shirt, his grey hair falling carelessly on his shoulders, Tweedy has made little attempt to disguise himself. One man and a mic’d-up acoustic guitar: what could be more human than that?
He’s touring on the back of last year’s solo album, Together At Last, which features pared-down renditions of Wilco songs, plus one selection apiece from side projects Loose Fur and Golden Smog. Tonight, he stretches the remit further. Shows of this nature provide an opportunity to seek connections across an entire catalogue, and Tweedy grasps it. For 90 minutes he draws from a deep well of music, the set stretching from Uncle Tupelo’s “New Madrid”, from 1993, to “Noah’s Flood (Let’s Go Rain Again)”, a new song which smuggles its apocalyptic tendencies inside the Trojan horse of a Scout-camp singalong.
The emotional bar is set high from the start. Opening with a peal of high, lonesome harmonica, the homesick blues of “Via Chicago” crackles with the kind of charged intimacy most artists covet as a destination rather than a beginning. “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” is stripped off the original’s slacker-slow sonic abrasion, becoming a taut, bluesy murmur. Tweedy’s apparently lackadaisical approach can be deceptive. When his voice slips up an octave on the final verse, half a ton of latent power is released.
There is prettiness aplenty here – not least on the lilting “You And I” – but he doesn’t always take the easy options. The knotty “Hummingbird” is a mess, the tricky chords and unfocused melody suffering through exposure (though it does allow Tweedy the chance for some mean whistling). When he straps on an open- tuned guitar for Loose Fur’s “Laminated Cat”, for the first time tonight the six strings are given a serious workout. He goes out even further on “Bull Black Nova”, the neurotic funk of the original transposed into an eccentric arrangement dominated by isolated stabs and scrapes. Abstract and disjointed, it doesn’t really work, but he gets a commendation for trying.
As the evening wears on, Tweedy relaxes into a wry stage presence. He has a robust way with hecklers shouting out song requests – “I don’t have to do anything!” – and barely blinks when a fight breaks out in the back pews, to the incongruous soundtrack of “A Shot In The Arm”: “The evening does feel complete now,” he grins. As he settles, the set hits its stride. “Locator” is thrillingly compact. Stripped bare, the gorgeousness of “Jesus Etc” is presented like a gift. “California Stars”, from the Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration,
Mermaid Avenue, is all sunshine and simple pleasures, Tweedy requesting that the audience hold down the melody while he tackles the harmonies. “I’m The Man Who Loves You”, meanwhile, is a sharpedged hoedown, Tweedy throwing “It’s Alright Ma…” shapes on the guitar.
What do we learn? That time has settled on these songs like a fine coating of gold dust. Throughout the night, Tweedy brings new compassion to old wounds, making a virtue of simplicity. Rendered as a bittersweet country strum, the young man’s angst of “Misunderstood” is particularly moving, filtered through 20 years’ worth of perspective. “We love you!” shouts a member of the audience. “I know,” he smiles. “Shhh...” Yes, human is the word.
Tonight, the emotional bar is set high from the start…