All right OK all right OK all right.

Last night was the first of two free concerts myself and the wife are seeing this week, courtesy of my infinite patience and an organization called Wall Street Rising.

I should begin by saying that Jeff Tweedy rocked (figuratively, I guess, because the set was acoustic... though I suppose we could open a debate over one can literally rock on acoustic.. whatever). However, to say that the show was free requires some qualification. True, we did not pay one red cent for the tickets themselves. I waited in a long line for four hours to get them, but I am at a stage in my life where I'll readily spend time over money. So, we get in the door for free. Our seats were pretty good. Because there was seating, the crowd was stationary, which was nice (none of the constant press forward in standing-room venues), and since there was no booze, everyone was fairly sedate, making my favorite concert-going behaviors all but nonexistent (more on that in a mo').

However. HOWEVER. We did have to sit through 40-odd minutes of the ear-bleeding make-you-tear-your-hair-and-clothes-in-pain stylings of Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. I thought that the two would play together for the whole thing and it would be pared-down, yet Wilco-y, but I was horribly mistaken. Nels opened. Which is to say, he PLAYED BY HIMSELF.

O Nels Cline, with your knobs and petals and tiny little guitar whose proper name escapes me. Why did you improvise for 20 minutes straight? Did you not know that just because you can make those noises doesn't mean that you should? My dear fellow, I greatly enjoy A Ghost is Born, and after seeing you play last night, I see your "artistic touches" and "signature style" folded (sometimes artfully, sometimes a little shoe-horned, in my opinion) into the album. But O Holy Mother of God, Nels. These are not things that should stand on their own.

My friends, the "music" (clicks, thumps, tones, long stretches of a high-pitched sqweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) that our friend Nels played for us last night was the soundtrack to a high fever. It was Alice's fall down the rabbit-hole meets what I imagine the scarier scenes of Naked Lunch (the book) would sound like. It was the screams of hell in guitar-torturing form. People left the room in droves to wait politely just outside the doors. There was very little heckling. So paralyzed were we by discomfort, horror and indignation. "He plays with Wilco!" we thought to ourselves, "and they're great, so how is this so horrible?" But few among us could muster the strength to boo (and I don't condone booing at all. An audience, under most circumstances, should conduct itself with a modicum of respect). Indeed, when his set was complete, the crowd applauded wildly, because it was blessedly, ear-ringingly over.

That was the payment exacted from Wall Street Rising for the free Jeff Tweedy. We gave our pounds of flesh. And gladly, for Mr. Tweedy's set was fantastic. He stood in his pool of light on the stage, encircled by guitars, and held 900 people completely rapt through an amazing set and two encores. Seriously, the place was silent, hanging on his every word, note, movement. We held our breaths while he changed guitars. We exhaled when someone in the audience screamed out the name of a song, thus engaging him... *whew* like an awkward date when the guy is much cooler than you are, you're happy to have someone else start the conversation. Tweedy then joked that the best way to get him to play a song was to tell him not to play it. And hilarious banter with the geniuses in the audience ensued. My favorite episode went something like this:

Girl in front of us: Don't play Passenger Side!
Jeff Tweedy: Don't play Passenger Side?
GIFOU: Yeah!
JT: Well, fuck you, man. I'll play whatever the hell I want to play.
- scattered WOOs and applause -
JT: It has closed couplets, you know. Have you (sternly peering in our general direction) ever written a poem with closed couplets?

She then proceeded to have some kind of weird groveling, applauding epileptic fit when he did play Passenger Side later in the concert.

All in all, the evening was a success, less the pre-show death march in the cold rain to a Burritoville that wasn't there and the post-show Stolen Cab Incident (I'll find you one and cut your fingers off, biatch... trust me, your uppence will come).

My love for Jeff Tweedy is stronger than ever. He writes lyrics in closed couplets and uses words like "maudlin." *sigh* And that voice. That perfect, effortless, gravelly, bardic voice.

A little line-waiting and some ear-blood were well worth it.