Jeff Tweedy - Shepherds Bush Empire

This was a strange one – in London for one show only, and essentially to provide publicity and support for the fiery full-band live album “Kicking Television” – Jeff Tweedy from Wilco played a solo show at what is fast becoming my favourite London live music venue – The Shepherds Bush Empire.

I’ve often dreamed of seeing Jeff Tweedy play one of his elusive solo shows. The latest line-up of Wilco focus predominantly on the last couple of albums (quite understandable given “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and “A Ghost Is Born” are the two albums they’ve created as a cohesive unit) – but I got into Jeff Tweedy along time ago in the Uncle Tupelo days and have followed the many twists and turns he’s led Wilco through – from alt-country rock gods, to post-rock noise merchants with a pop twist!

So the solo shows always seemed like the best way to take in the entire Jeff Tweedy catalog – sit back while he strums a few of the oldies, strips back a few more recent songs, and maybe even throws in the odd cool cover or even a new song he’s just written. Admittedly in my mind this gig takes place in the farm house / recording studio the band now live in – and I get a job as a full-time editor/archivist for the band – do to my extensive knowledge of their back catalog and a shared history of rock and roots favourites.

Well – apart from the whole farm house thing – tonight’s show at The Shepherd’s Bush Empire pretty much delivered everything I wanted. Kicking off with ‘Sunken Treasure’ the show was a great mix of all facets of JTs career – side projects: Golden Smog’s ‘Please Tell My Brother’ and Mermaid Avenue’s ‘’Christ for President’ and ‘Remember The Mountain Bed’ – back catalog stuff dating back to Uncle Tupelo with ‘Black Eye’, ‘Wait Up’ and my personal favourite ‘New Madrid’. There was a new song – in the form of Loose Furs ‘The Ruling Class’ (a great one about Jesus returning as some kind of deal makin’, crack smokin’ marketing executive), plus plenty of old skool Wilco: ‘She’s A Jar’, ‘Summer Teeth’, ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’, and an encore opening ‘Passenger Side’.

But for me – the biggest revelation was how well the more recent Wilco stuff translated to the solo acoustic format. A main-set closing ‘Reservations’ was amazing – and for me the highlight of the night, but ‘Theologians’, ‘Muzzle Of Bees’ and show closer ‘The Late Greats’ all sounded fantastic.

A great cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘John Wesley Harding’ was also really well received – especially with the self depreciating introduction (as Dylan was also playing across town) “boy did you make the wrong choice”. (Almost) a dream come true show!