It’s interesting, the different dynamics that make up a band.
Patrick Sansone@@http://nelscline.com/faq.html@@ is pensive, his silent gaze focused on the keyboards. As if on a trampoline, bassist John Stirratt@@http://www.puresongwriters.com/interview1_wilco1.htm@@ has a huge grin on his face while he jumps to the music. Jeff Tweedy@@http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/wilco-jeff-tweedy-weather-274352@@, the founder of the group, sings and plays guitar. He talks with the audience between songs, keeping the energy going. Mikael Jorgensen@@http://blogcritics.org/music/article/interview-mikael-jorgensen-of-wilco-and/@@, in a watchtower surrounded by keyboards, scans the audience through his glasses while nodding his head with the music. Nels Cline, 10 years the senior of anyone else, has an academic look to his face as his fingers roll up and down the neck of the guitar. Almost completely hidden by cymbals and drums, Glenn Kotche’s@@http://glennkotche.com/@@ arms flail wildly as he batters out volley after volley of percussive fills.
How can you describe infectious happiness?
Heads are nodding, spotlights are flashing, people are jumping and the crowd is going wild.
This is Wilco. This is rock music.
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The band, on tour to promote its latest album, “The Whole Love,”@@http://wilcoworld.net/#!/music/the-whole-love/@@ played to a nearly sold-out Hult Center on Friday night. The concert hall was filled with new and longtime fans of the almost 20-year-old group.
Patrick Stevens recalled his first experience with the music of Wilco, more than 15 years ago.
“I was in a record store in Eugene and I saw the album, the ‘A.M.’ album,”@@http://www.amazon.com/M-Wilco/dp/B000002MWY@@ he said. “I put it on and it was so different than anything that I had heard. It was soulful and it was easy to listen to and it was country.”
Now well-known for playing across genre boundary lines, Stevens remembered the surprise that he felt when he discovered the band.
“Wilco started the alternative country for mainstream,” Stevens said. “It was filling a void. It was a cross-over between country and rock.”
Also a longtime fan, Chip Radebaugh laughed as he described his first experience with the group.
“I was in a deep Led Zeppelin@@http://www.ledzeppelin.com/@@ funk and this brought me out of the ’70s and into the ’90s,” he said. “It was mellow and it was poetry and it just hit home.”
Radebaugh said he was relieved when he found something new and good to listen to.
“It was just a change in the music genre because the ’80s sucked, so it was like a jump from the ’70s to the ’90s,” he said.
After playing more than two and a half hours, a standing ovation brought the band back onto the stage for a five-song encore.
Wilco will soon head to Scandinavia and then more of Europe, where the band will continue to tour through June.
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Read the Daily Emerald’s interview with Patrick Sansone here.