Wilco – L’Olympia – Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Opening up the night exactly when the clock struck 8:00 was Toronto, Ontario native Afie Jurvanen or as most know him these days, Bahamas. For awhile now Jurvanen has been playing with the likes of Jason Collett, Great Lake Swimmers, Amy Millan and Feist, quietly but surely making a name for himself in the Canadian indie music community. Now Jurvanen, under his alias Bahamas, is stepping into the spotlight as a solo musician. Last night’s show opening for Wilco was perhaps one of the biggest shows he has ever played and he did not disappoint. As more and more people poured into the gorgeous Olympia Theatre, Jurvanen quietly welcomed everyone to the show with his heart-felt folk rock ballads. He played mostly songs from his excellent debut album, Pink Strat, which if you haven’t heard you should definitely pick up.

After a short and concise set, Bahamas left the stage to a gracious round of applause, and the wait began. It was only a half an hour between the time Bahamas left the stage and Wilco took the stage, but to everyone in attendance, the wait felt more like an hour. At last, to the sound of a horn section triumphantly announcing the arrival of the band, Jeff Tweedy and his band took the stage, arms raised, to an enormous round of applause. The crowd went even crazier when they found out the first song they would hear would be “Wilco (The Song)”, the lead track from the band’s latest, critically acclaimed album, Wilco (The Album). During the band’s second song, While Tweedy was singing how “I am trying to break your heart”, everyone in attendance was contrarily falling more and more in love with the band. They kept the energy pretty high throughout the first part of the set, only slowing down for an instant to play the emotion driven “You Are My Face” from 2007’s Sky Blue Sky. This wasn’t the only older song the band played. They played songs from all over the Wilco discography, including the ever popular “A Shot in the Arm”, “She’s a Jar” and “Summer Teeth” from 1999’s Summerteeth and “Muzzle of Bees” from 2004’s A Ghost is Born, among others

What made this performance so special was not merely the fact that the band played for two and a half hours. But it was obvious that the band was giving their all on every single song. It’s for this reason that Wilco has so many fans worldwide that are willing to come out in droves for their shows and completely lose their minds when the band plays. It seemed like a very reciprocal relationship, with the band feeding off the energy of the crowd and vice-versa. Tweedy’s banter in between songs kept the mood light and everybody smiling. After congratulating the Canadian audience on all of our olympic medals he told the audience about how the band went to Vancouver but didn’t medal. According to Tweedy the band entered as a 6 man bobsled but they were disqualified because there was no rock sled competition, “So we brought it to you” said Tweedy to a huge round of applause.

The night was full of beautiful moments but perhaps the best of all was when Tweedy had the audience sing the entire first half of “Jesus Etc.”, the band only joining in on vocals for the last verse. Tweedy then said that “there have been some real dog shit performances of that song but that was spectacular! That’s about the loudest I’ve ever heard an audience sing it”. The love affair continued. Finally, after about an hour and a half of rocking, the band left the stage for a brief time before coming back out for an epic encore that lasted for another hour in which the band played some more fan favourites like “Via Chicago”, “Red-Eyed and Blue” along with a rousing cover of Neil Young’s “Broken Arrow”, of which Tweedy called “an homage to Canada”. This certainly wasn’t your average show, and I think even though the band played for over two and a half hours people were still sad to see them go. One thing is for sure: Montreal loves Wilco! – Greg Lozoff

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Wilco

Bahamas

Photography by David Gosselin

Tags: 2010, Bahamas, Canada, Concert, February 27, Jeff Tweedy, Montreal, Olympia, Review, sold out, Wilco