Kicking Television - Live In Chicago

Each studio album sent Jeff Tweedy and Wilco's musical experiments further in unexpected directions, turning pop, psychedelic, and post-punk without ever losing the emotional ties found in the simplest of heartland rock. Line-up shuffles made Wilco primarily Jeff Tweedy’s band by the time of Kicking Television, but the ghosts of his former collaborators — Jay Bennett, R.I.P. — remains a strong undercurrent. “Misunderstood” from Being There begins things with a foreboding sense of the smoldering turmoil that would drive Wilco’s later sound. “The Late Greats” and “Company In My Back” from 2004’s A Ghost Is Born saddle up with a stronger country lope than ever, while tunes from their landmark Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (“Heavy Metal Drummer,” “Radio Cure,” “Poor Places”) sound ever more ambitious and free. In the end, the feedback and Tweedy’s tortured guitar solos fire up the masses (“Spiders (Kidsmoke)”) with touches of punk rock abandon, but it’s the sweet swell of electric guitar and the sad, lost vocal moans present in “Hell Is Chrome” and “Ashes of American Flags” that nail home the band’s stunning beauty.