Wilco and Soccer

Wilco and Soccer
100 % Ridiculous

After attending the Wilco concert yesterday, I have realized that the best way to explain why Wilco is so good is by using a soccer metaphor. Actually, this is just the sort of thing that is likely to occur in the strange and disorienting experience that is being John Welsh.

Many soccer formations are based around the use of one player who serves as 'fantasista.' Look for them this summer at the World Cup, most of them wear number 10.

While the other players stick to a fairly rigid formation, the fantasista has no defined job. Or rather, he has only one job, which is to make the opposition's formation fall apart. He does this by constantly moving around and often occupying places where he really shouldn't be. His positioning and passing are unpredictable, designed with the sole purpose of pushing opposition players out of their comfort zone. In contrast, the fantasista always knows that his teammates will always be just where they should be, just where he expects them to be.

This is how Wilco operates in a live concert. The majority of the band keeps formation, playing very basically structured sequences and creating a very strong sense of key. Over that, one play attempts to make everything fall apart. His name is Nels Cline-- which actually sounds a bit like some sort of Scandanavian playmaker.

It is different from traditional improvisation as he is seemingly unobliged to follow the band in terms of tempo, key, tone, or style. Rather than contributing to the operation of the song, it is almost as though he is attempting to make it fall apart. He plays his guitar as though he knows it so well he has forgotten what it is supposed to do. It's a bit like the scene in Spinal Tap when Nigel attempts to play a guitar with a violin-- like that except simply spectacular. Sometimes it sounded like an airplane taking off, but Tweedy and the other band members just kept playing the song, and eventually Nels would refind them exactly where he knew that they would be.

Although Wilco have been doing this kind of thing on the past two or three albums, Nels seems to be a new addition; and it looks like they have just signed a killer new number 10, who was easily the most dynamic performer on the stage yesterday. The new stuff sounded good, really good; and makes Wilco's next effort the album I am most excited about.