Music review: Wilco, Barrowlands, Glasgow

FOR the past 25 years, Chicago band Wilco have been bending classic Americana to their inventive, sometimes indulgent will, but they return after a year-long hiatus in seemingly mellow mood, kicking off this two-hour concert with the slow, solid beat and twinkling guitar of the understated Bright Leaves and the slowburn country prayer Before Us, both from new album, Ode to Joy.

Wilco specialise in melodious moody blues, grungey catharsis and roots rock

Wilco, Barrowlands, Glasgow ***

The first signs of a more declamatory delivery – and one of their customary cosmic crescendos – came with I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, a fan favourite from one of their best-loved albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But even through the breezier momentum of Kamera and the low-slung delivery of the sweet, poetic If Ever I Was A Child, it still felt like the band were held in check, waiting for the gig to start.

Only when frontman Jeff Tweedy switched over to electric guitar did the performance kick up a gear, with the crowd stirred up by a firebrand Handshake Drugs and the heightened energy of beefy roots rocker Random Name Generator, and its catchy fuzz guitar hookline.

Tweedy’s facility for storytelling was showcased on Hummingbird and the chiming Teenage Fanclub-esque harmonies of Box Full of Letters but these more extrovert moments were only an occasional part of the ebb and flow of a set just as likely to be characterised by the pleasing yearning of White Wooden Cross, a new meditation on mortality inspired by roadside memorials, the soft electric piano and gentle Latin inflections of How to Fight Loneliness, or the proverbial “it’s not you it’s me” conflicted feelings of Reservations.

Occasionally, a sleek, blue-eyed soul interlude would be rudely interrupted by some noodly guitar wrangling. An unexpected clattering drum solo barrage in the middle of Via Chicago seemed to belong in a different gig, never mind a different song.

Suitably roused from the reverie, there were some enthusiastic heckled song requests from the floor. Tweedy managed expectations with the wry riposte “you’re going to leave here slightly disappointed” before launching into a new track Everyone Hides, where the freewheeling musical mood contrasted with ambivalent lyrics about formulating a best version of yourself.

At least the closing salvo of tracks constituted a best version of Wilco, encompassing the melodious moody blues of Jesus, Etc, grungey catharsis of Misunderstood and righteous roots rocker I Got You (At the End of the Century).

FIONA SHEPHERD