Airline to Heaven - Billy Bragg and Wilco

In July of 2000, I snuck into a concert at the Camden Opera House to see a band I didn’t know much about. The band was Wilco, and this was the song they opened with.

Today I was trying to dig up a recording of the concert, but instead came across a local man’s delightful reflections of that very concert.

When it came time, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare: the lights went down, the PA music died out, the announcer grabbed a mic and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Wilco!” On they came: multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach looking like everyman – he could’ve walked across Main Street in front of us while we were standing in line outside and he would’ve just looked like a … well … normal guy; shy-grinning John Stirratt in a wrinkled dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up; Ken Coomer in a pale-yellow Western-style shirt screeched right up to the top button, tucking himself into his cockpit behind the drums. And then there was Jeff Tweedy – head down, slight nod to the crowd – short-cropped hair looking like he’d just had a go at it with a pair of scissors back stage; well-worn faded grey t-shirt with what looked like a 45 single graphic on the front and – leather pants? Yes, but no time for that now; Tweedy was already strumming his faithful old Gibson J-45, laying down the backporch rhythm to “Airline To Heaven”.

And then there was Jay Bennett. Remember – this was old-school Wilco: none of the Nels Cline art-rock-I-am-being-electrocuted-by-this-neat-vintage-Fender-Jazzmaster or Pat Sansone’s Telecaster-slinger poses. This was the Jay Bennett era with all its weirdness: baby face usually well-hidden by three-day stubble, oversize hornrims, and tumbling dirty-blonde dreadlocks; potential bad-craziness stage outfit of out-of-the-hamper sundress accented with a string of pearls, badly-smeared lipstick, and topped with a dented tiara. But, oh - that man could play. On this evening, Jay Bennett lurched out of the shadows looking like a mad scientist in a long white lab coat, lashing at the neck of a fat acoustic Guild 12-string with a bottleneck slide.