Wilco routinely pull out all the stops at their long-running Solid Sound festival on the campus of MASS MoCA in Northampton, Ma., and last night (June 29) was no different, as the Jeff Tweedy-led group performed their beloved 2004 album A Ghost Is Born in its entirety for the first time in honor of its 20th anniversary. Much like when Wilco played their full Being There and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot albums back-to-back in 2017, the A Ghost Is Born performance was a surprise to the audience.
The suspense lasted for the first 10 songs of the set, which were drawn from throughout Wilco’s 30-year catalog and included the live debuts of “Annihilation” and “Say You Love Me” from their new EP, Hot Sun Cool Shroud. From there, they shifted into all 12 songs from A Ghost Is Born, which won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album. Although most of the songs, including “Handshake Drugs,” “Hummingbird” and “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” are still regularly featured in Wilco’s set lists, several are rarely played, including closer “Less Than You Think” (three times since 2017) and “Wishful Thinking,” (seven times since 2019).
After A Ghost Is Born, the band returned for a five-song encore led by “Jesus, Etc.,” “Impossible Germany” and “A Shot in the Arm.”
On Friday, Wilco made good on their advertised “deep cuts night” by airing a host of uncommon numbers, including the first-ever performances of “Quiet Amplifier,” “Venus Stopped the Train” and “Tell Your Friends” plus several songs not played in more than a decade (“Sonny Feeling,” “Deeper Down,” “More Like the Moon”).
The set had been described beforehand as “a special one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated performance where you can expect the unexpected as Wilco rack their collective memory, airing out a wide range of less-played, rarely-played and possibly never played tracks from their vast — and let’s face it, at this point, unwieldy — catalog.
Solid Sound closes today with a free-wheeling set from Tweedy and friends. From there, Wilco will visit Toronto on July 2-3 and Chautauqua, N.Y. on July 5. Tweedy also has solo performances on tap on Sept. 7-8 as part of the Evanston Folk Festival just outside the group’s Chicago home base.