Music Preview: Wilco Skip ACL, But Hit Stubb's This Weekend

A regular fixture on Austin's stages, Jeff Tweedy and Wilco certainly appeal to a broad cross-section of our city's music fans due to their sonic juxtapositions of alt.country, folk, and noisy Neil Young/Sonic Youth guitar rock. The group turned down their amps on last year's Sky Blue Sky, which found a pensive Tweedy retreating into gentle folk tunes after a series of critically lauded experimental albums like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. The new record was more of a polarizer: in a "year in music" wrap-up on KUT last year, KUT DJ David Brown named it one of his Top 5 of the year, while Austin American-Statesman music writer Joe Gross called it one of the year's biggest disappointments.

The wild card in Wilco's recent lineup has been the guitar playing: even Sky Blue Sky's detractors noted that Wilco's newish guitarist Nels Cline was providing some jaw-dropping pieces of playing to compliment Tweedy's new tunes. This assertion was confirmed on Wilco's 2007 Austin City Limits TV appearance, which was an undisputed highlight of the season. Cline's experimental leanings can display themselves most fully in a live setting, and we suspect that the relatively intimate confines of Stubb's will provide a better setting for a show than last year's Zilker Park appearance at ACL Fest.

In concert, Wilco are a rougher animal than on record, often stretching songs out and beating them up a bit with louder guitars and less subtle interpretations. This lack of preciousness usually makes for an outstanding live experience, although Tweedy can sometimes become distracted and temperamental with rowdy audiences. So be warned - don't answer your cell phone or heckle during these gigs. It won't do anyone any good.