By Ben Bonadies

Photo by Ben Bonadies

Time is a funny thing. Ideas that might have once seemed outré can become completely ordinary given enough time to gestate. Sixteen months ago, the idea of having any large public gathering was preposterous. Widespread inoculations against the coronavirus pandemic were something of a pipe dream. Live music became a relic of the Before Times, relegated to Instagram and archive.org 

In 1995, when Sleater-Kinney and Wilco released their debut albums, the two bands could hardly be considered related. Sleater-Kinney’s self-titled record was 23 minutes of taught post-punk that established them as one of the most formidable rock bands of the pacific northwest underground. Wilco’s AM was informed by the radio rock from which it takes its name with just enough twang to get them tagged as “alternative country.” 

Now, in our present moment, time has conspired to bring these two bands together. Their joint tour’s title “It’s Time” read as a sigh of relief when it was announced in June and now sounds like stubborn insistence amid the rising tide of the Delta variant. It’s time that has brought these bands together and it’s time that has changed them both to the point where such a co-headline bill would make sense. Sleater-Kinney’s cult following propelled them to their equivalent of a pop crossover when the band regrouped for 2015’s No Cities to Love. After the St. Vincent-produced The Center Won’t Hold, drummer and founding member Janet Weiss parted ways with the band, making S-K’s latest release Path of Wellness the first with only lead guitarist Carrie Brownstein and lead vocalist Corin Tucker at the helm. Wilco transformed from a shaggy bar band into bona-fide art-rockers, earning critical praise, nabbing a Grammy and expanding their fanbase to a small army of liberal Dads as they went. 

Following an opening set by NNAMDÏ, it was time for the main event. Sleater-Kinney were perhaps too raucous for the mostly seated, mostly aged crowd. Maybe this is the pandemic talking, but it was easy to favor the giant screens on either side of the stage rather than the live performers between them. Browstein’s electric performance was definitely a reason to keep eyes off the jumbotrons though, as her frequent high-kicks and expressive guitar moves were rarely captured by camera operators. 

Brownstein aside, there was little to like about Sleater-Kinney’s set. The newly formed band, which included keyboardist Galen Clark and guitarist/vocalist Fabi Reyna, did not make proper use of their expanded lineup. Despite the five talented performers on stage and a new sonic direction underway, the live arrangements hewed conservative. Few songs made use of Clark’s keyboard and additional percussion flourishes and Reyna’s guitar mostly doubled Brownstein or  Tucker. Allston Pudding writer and DJ Dillon Riley, also in attendance, lamented the missed potential over our $14 Modelo tall boys. In a space as large as Blue Hills Bank  Rockland Trust Bank  Leader Bank Pavilion, any unfilled pocket of sound stands out. A pared-down punk band doesn’t have the immediacy here as it would in a 500 cap club. Sleater-Kinney brought high energy and solid musicianship to the 5,000-seat venue, but the setting played against their strengths and highlighted their weaknesses. 

It’s clear that Wilco is a band that has been playing together for a long time, a fact made all the more obvious after Sleater-Kinney, whose current lineup only started playing together this year, left the stage. Wilco songs are like leather: classic, durable, and prone to maturation the more they’re lived in. Songs like “I’m The Man Who Loves You” were the most exciting with the band fully in the groove, while “Everyone Hides” from 2019’s Ode to Joy wasn’t quite so loose. But it’s “Impossible Germany” that is the band’s live opus. The Sky Blue Sky track elicits yelps of recognition and rising clouds of smoke from the crowd as the melodic topline shifts to proggy explorations courtesy of lead guitarist Nels Cline. Cline was a highlight reel unto himself, laying down hard riffs on the underrated Star Wars cut “Random Name Generator,” tasteful slide guitar on “Love is Everywhere (Beware)” and Jonny Greenwood-esque synthesizer freakouts on “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” 

Singer Jeff Tweedy was a sight to behold as well. On stage, the bearish Chicagoan visibly fed off the crowd’s energy. He loves encouraging group sing-a-longs and is a big pantomimer when freed from his guitar duties. Memorably, Tweedy dropped the band out behind him and gave a cheeky wave to the crowd at the “Hello” line of “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.” 

It’s moments like this that make a case for Tweedy as a pop star, an idol for cool Dads and NPR donors everywhere. He’s developed a sort of cult of personality around himself between musical side projects with his son, authoring books, and frequent guest spots on NPR. His legion of over-40 devotees were out in force on this Tuesday night, something Hollywood has been trying and failing to do for the better part of a decade. I asked the man seated to my left, Jimmy, age 49, what the last movie he saw in theaters was. His reply: 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. (He later clarified to me that he saw 2020’s Bill & Ted Face the Music at a drive-in and, though we agreed that doesn’t technically count as a theatergoing experience, I promised him I’d include that detail in my article.  Jimmy fucking rules.)

The decline of cinematic experiences aimed at adults has been the subject of much lamentation, but Wilco have somehow cracked the code to put grown butts in seats. Not that there were many butts in seats to speak of—the crowd rose to its feet from the first notes of opener “A Shot in the Arm” and didn’t return until they drove home well after the encore, which included a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” in tribute to Stones drummer Charlie Watts who passed that day.

It’s easy to draw comparisons to the Grateful Dead when you’re at a Wilco show. Many current and former hippies were in the audience, stealies emblazoned on shirts and patches. The Dead, a perennial crowd-drawer for fans young and old, made their live shows into spectacles, to the point where they eclipsed their recorded output altogether. Much the same can be said of Tweedy and co., who delight in transforming their songs on stage and feed off the chemistry not only of the crowd but of each other. Tweedy was frequently beaming during Cline’s solos, their poet-guitarist dynamic echoing the Dead’s Hunter-Garcia partnership. “Heavy Metal Drummer” is Wilco’s “Casey Jones,” with chants of “beautiful and stoned” recalling the latter’s “high on cocaine” refrain. There was even a drums + space-style interlude that led into “Impossible Germany.” If you decide to pass on Dead & Co. this summer, don’t skip Wilco.

Somewhere between December 31, 2019 and March 15, 2020, something shifted.  Somewhere between the last two Sleater-Kinney albums, Janet Weiss decided she’d had enough. And somewhere between 1995 and August 24, 2021, Wilco became the great American art-rock band, a cultural force powerful enough to draw a crowd on a Tuesday night, even though you can’t hear them on the radio. As with everything, it’s only a matter of time.