Is this the very first Wilco gig? I’m pretty sure that the group at least played some parties earlier than the date listed; first paying gig, maybe. Regardless, as Jeff Tweedy announces at the beginning by way of intro for “Too Far Apart,” “This is the first song we ever played, and the first time we ever played it was on the record.” The record in question of course is Wilco’s 1995 debut, A.M., and here, tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 14 and 15 all wound up on the album. Wilco is caught still sounding a lot like Uncle Tupelo, and in fact among the other songs performed in St. Louis, tracks 4, 7, 10, 12 and 17 were Tupelo holdovers, all appearing on the band’s swansong Anodyne (“Give Back The Key To My Heart” additionally being a Doug Sahm composition). And while there’s nothing so over-the-top compelling here that would seem to have forecasted Wilco’s future status as one of the modern era’s most critically-hailed groups, the show still provides an interesting look at the band in its embryonic stage.
Wilco’s turning out to be an unusually heavily bootlegged group; I’ve counted something like ten titles, many of them soundboards, appearing through the Coffee Tea Or Me cartel just in the past year or so. Testimony to greatness, eh?
As a soundboard recording it’s somewhat thin, not much bass, vocals overly prominent, so you’ll have to do some equalization to get a truly enjoyable listening experience.
Nominal artwork, just one-sided insert and panel. -- OSWALD
