The slow burn of an evening with Wilco

A Wilco concert has a way of sneaking up on you.

Over their 30-plus year career, the eclectic rock veterans have honed their grasp on dynamics, from the gentlest acoustic strum to the most chaotic drum breakdown. They are performers who like to take their crowd on a journey, and often, it’s a surprising one. Take “Handshake Drugs,” which landed at the top of Wilco’s headlining appearance at The Met Philly this week: the pensive song opened on a note of soft solemnity, and it begged some questions: is this boring? Are they low-energy tonight?

But just wait. The song built, and built, and built some more, with swells of sound and an accelerated rhythm, progressing bit by bit until lead guitarist Nels Cline could be seen feverishly rocking back and forth at stage right, wrenching dissonant moans and bursts of screeching notes from his instrument, parrying with frontman Jeff Tweedy as the minor epic stormed to a close. It was explosive, but began with barely a whisper.

This was a formula that Wilco returned to throughout their 32-song, nearly-three-hour show at The Met, a two-set, “an evening with”-style performance. Sure, some selections were more straightforward in how they were presented: an aching brooder like “Sunken Treasure” or “Via Chicago,” or a twangy country jam like “Box Full Of Letters” are so well-known and beloved that messing with their structure seems like a mistake.

But on the band’s output of the past decade in particular, songs seem to be structured with flexibility in mind. From 2022’s Cruel Country, “Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull” was a highlight of set one that completely flew over the heads of some audience members — you should have seen the folks sprinting for beer lines and the bathroom en masse at the acoustic outset of this less-than-familiar song, it was hilarious. Had they stuck around, they would have experienced a subtle journey from minimalist ballad to a full six-piece band interlocked, collectively building to a voluminous peak, led by intense rhythms from drummer Glenn Kotche; it didn’t have the fireworks of “Handshake Drugs,” but it was potent.

In set two, the iconic “Impossible Germany” returned to a deceptively quiet point of origin: Cline’s legendary guitar solo on this one began with drifting harmonics, soft droning melodies manipulated by his tremolo bar, and periods of lots of open space. But before the thought “wait, is Nels not killing it tonight?” could enter one’s mind, he began playing more notes, and more, and faster, and you know how it goes. By the time the song returned to its opening harmonic theme, it was a show stopper, as it always is.

Wilco’s show at The Met was the band’s first Philadelphia appearance since a Mann Center show with Sleater-Kinney and NNAMDÏ in 2021; noting this, Tweedy playfully gave the crowd flack for giving the band flack for not coming around more often. “Philadelphia complains more than any other city that we don’t play here enough,” Tweedy said. (This checks out.) “We’re here now! There are so many cities.”

The Met show gave even Wilco’s most demanding fans something to go home happy with: dips back to their celebrated Mermaid Avenue project, where they wrote new songs to Woodie Guthrie lyrics (“California Stars” is always a treat). A lead vocal from bassist John Stirratt on “It’s Just That Simple” (he’s the only member of Wilco, aside from Tweedy, who has been with the band since its beginning). A strong showing of the underrated A Ghost Is Born LP (both the weirdness of “Spiders / Kidsmoke” and the jaunty beauty of “Hummingbird”). And most notably, cuts from across their breadth of their robust catalog (the melodic melancholy of “Evicted” offered a solid reason to revisit 2023’s Cousins; “Quiet Amplifier” from 2019’s Ode To Joy thundered and roared).

The Evening With Wilco tour continues through the end of August, with Jeff Tweedy heading out on a solo tour this autumn (including a Philly appearance at Union Transfer on October 20th). Full dates here.