Wilco's Trans-Canada tour, a.k.a. the Tundra Tour, is under way with a performance in Hamilton, Ontario, tonight, and is being marked with the poster at left. The band has also added five tour dates in Germany this September. Last weekend's trio of sold-out sets in the Midwest included Wilco's being named an honorary Duluth band by the city's mayor and a show in Madison that The A.V. Club says confirmed: "This version of Wilco is simply the most reliable working rock band we have today."
Wilco's Trans-Canada tour, a.k.a. the Tundra Tour, is under way with a performance at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario, tonight, following last week's shows in western Canada. The tour heads next to London, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax, before heading down to the warmer climes of the American South at the end of March. The current tour has been commemorated in the poster at left by Jose Garcia. The band has also added five tour dates in Germany this September, with stops in Düsseldorf, Offenbach, Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin following their stop at the End of the Road Festival in the UK. For all the tour dates, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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This latest leg of the Trans-Canada tour comes after a trio of sold-out dates in the American Midwest this past weekend at DECC Arena in Duluth, Minnesota, on Friday; Overture Hall in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday; and Wharton Cobb Great Hall in Lansing, Michigan, on Sunday.
The weekend got off to an auspicious start even before the first show, when Duluth mayor Don Ness presented Wilco with a decree naming them an honorary Duluth band. Or as Jeff Tweedy recalled it from the stage and the Minneapolis / St. Paul City Pages reports, "'A teenage boy came up to us and said he was the mayor. He gave it to us. We think it's legit.'" The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says it made for "another ridiculously fun" show from Wilco.
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Up next was a performance at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin, which was also webcast live on the band's site. The concert, says The A.V. Club's Steven Hyden, showed that "the live prowess of the current lineup of dudes backing up Tweedy cannot be denied. This version of Wilco is simply the most reliable working rock band we have today."
Hyden notes in particular the contribution from guitarist Nels Cline, "whose spastic bursts of kinetic six-string brilliance were once again dazzling throughout the night. Not only can the man play unlike anybody else on the planet, but he’s also a mesmerizing showman, shadowboxing with his amplifier while strangling his guitar to death on 'Bull Black Nova," from the band's latest Nonesuch release, Wilco (the album).
Read the concert review at avclub.com.
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