Wilco w/ White Fence at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas

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NEW: Free parking for Clark County ticket purchasers! Show your concert ticket and valid I.D. at the BBLV retail to validate. (*Valid at any Caesars self-park location. *Only valid for night of show.) Sat, Apr 4: Wilco w/ White Fence at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas 18+ // 7PM ++++ No one is more aware than Wilco that, on the heels of albums titled Schmilco and Star Wars,reappropriating the title of one of the most famous works of music in historyand in these times*, no lesscould come off to some as slightly disingenuous. But while acknowledging his bands own history of irreverence, here Jeff Tweedy snubs that angle, intending that we should take Wilcos 11th studio album, Ode to Joy, with open hearts. I think its audacious and sincere, Tweedy says. It just kept coming back as the one title that felt honest. The record is, in a weird way, an ode; this terrible stuff is happening, this deepening sense of creeping authoritarianism that weighs on everybodys psyche on a daily basis, and youre allowed to feel a lot of things at once. And one thing that is worth feeling, that is worth fighting for, is your freedom to still have joy even though things are going to shit. Besides, no one is more aware than Wilco that, on the heels of ten damn Wilco albumsand especially in these times**an 11th simply wouldnt be warranted were it not presenting something equally new and necessary. [*Political Climate, global; **Rock Music Climate, especially that of white men] Nobody needs more Wilco music, Tweedy says. But at the same time, if you use that as motivation, thats a lot of energy to push forward and try to make something that is worth sharing, to challenge yourself to make something that has meaning to you. As an artist, I think thats your fucking job. Following a year that produced a pair of solo albums as well as a bound autobiographical memoir, no one could ever accuse Tweedy of lacking a motor. But where those recent works reveled in their incisive, confessional focus, Wilco, as he says, has a broader mandate, one that requires the space to react to a sonic environment with a little more abstraction being baked into the equation. And so, with an eye on The Climates yet resolute in his belief that they should not dominate the headlines of our daily lives, he gathered Wilco to The Loft in Chicago for work. I wanted to write lyrics and create an environment for them that felt like our current landscape, he says. It forces us to ask, What do you do with those really insular feelings that feel almost shameful to allow yourself to indulge because of the greater amount of suffering you are witnessing? Well, so far Ive only been able to figure out that you make art with them. But I dont want to ignore the reality that they are somehow smaller than the landscape. And its a weird landscape to make art in, because at the same time I dont want to talk about it directly, I dont want Him or That to own my joy or my artthey dont deserve it. They cant have everything. So that allowed for the music to provide a lot of the commentary. On the subject of resistance, another looming elephant in the room provided the band a second behemoth of which to be wary: rock music itself. I am at a moment in my life where I feel the canon of Baby Boomer Rockism tropesRockist musicis complicit, Tweedy says. All of the music I hear that draws upon those tropes feels like its based in fear: Im afraid that we are not going to have any audience anymore if we dont keep perpetuating this. That notion is completely divorced from the most important aspect of what rock and roll is to me: self-liberation, self-actualization, self-invention. I can probably intuit that because I know that Ive felt it. Rockism is not intellectually an honest place to be, so this is more just a personal observation of what I dont want to do. From its very onset, Ode to Joy reflects and rejects these notions while building up far greater ideas from their foundations. Throughout the entire album, drums pound and plod with a steady onetwo pulse, meant to mimic the movement of marchinga powerful act utilized on both sides of the authoritarian wall. From the sparse and lovely opening duo of Bright Leaves and Before Us to the Nels Cline guitar freakouts of We Were Lucky and the gorgeously fractured final tune An Empty Corner, Glenn Kotches percussion propels the music forward while Tweedys measured words flesh out the cleared paths. While all six members of the band can be heard on every songmost clearly on the upbeat acoustic numbers Everyone Hides and Love Is Everywhere (Beware)its clear that Tweedy and Kotche were the launching pad from which most of the songs materialized, as they sketched initial ideas for the album together as a duo. By focusing on a unique rhythm track and a minimalist instrumental accompanimenttypically acoustic guitarand pairing that with observant lyrics at once hopeful, morbid, tolerant, and abstract, the bands vision was achieved. Theyre really big, big folks songs, these monolithic, brutal structures that these delicate feelings are hung onthats basically how I feel right now, Tweedy says. Everything is designed to be authoritarian. There is a sense of foreboding but theres also a desire to have some comfort, and to me that marching sound is really pleasing, almost like a heartbeat or something elemental, like a nice Q-tip in your ear. Im not saying Im depicting the current American landscape, Im just trying to have something feel the way I feel when I think about it. Whether our joy is measured by sparks felt when clutching old sweaters to our chests, by the number of tiny digital hearts earned from a shared photograph, by a guitar solo or a drumbeat or a piece of cotton on a stick, or by something even greater, Wilco wants to sincerely remind us to wear that feeling loud and proud. This is Ode to Joy: pick it up, hold it tight.