Wilco kicked off its North American tour last night at the University of Iowa and is at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, tonight. The band stays on in St. Paul for a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor on Saturday. Wilco plays the annual Farm Aid benefit concert, which will be broadcast live on DIRECTV and online on Sunday. Jeff Tweedy tells the Austin Chronicle about the joy of playing live, connecting with the audience: "I can't find anything better than that. You can feel it when a song means something to people."
Wilco kicked off its three-week North American tour last night at the University of Iowa's Memorial Union in Iowa City, with opener Liam Finn. The band plays each day this weekend, each stop a rather different performance than the next, beginning with another headlining gig with Finn at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, tonight.
The band stays on in St. Paul one more day to join Garrison Keillor at the Fitzgerald Theater for a live broadcast performance of A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday evening. Fans across the globe can tune in to the program on NPR, via Sirius Satellite Radio, or streaming online at prairiehome.org, starting at 5 PM CT.
On Sunday, Wilco heads to Maryland Heights, Missouri, to perform at the Verizon Amphitheater for the annual Farm Aid benefit concert. You can watch the day's events broadcast live in HD and commercial-free on DIRECTV's The 101 Network, or streaming online at farmaid.org, with coverage beginning at 5 PM ET. You can also listen to the performances live on Sirius XM Radio, through Willie's Place (Sirius Channel 64 or XM Channel 13), starting at 2 PM.
Up next week are more tour dates with Liam Finn, first in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday, and then in Cedar Park, Texas, outside of Austin, on Thursday. Jeff Tweedy spoke with the Austin Chronicle's Raoul Hernandez for an extensive interview in advance of the Cedar Park show. Among the many topics raised in the conversation is the ability of music to connect people, not least the artist and the audience. It's an experience Tweedy doesn't take lightly:
Luckily, Wilco is a band that gets out and plays a lot live and I've been fortunate enough to make that connection happen and that dialogue happen in real time with people in front of me. I can't find anything better than that. You can feel it when a song means something to people. You can feel it when it's starting to resonate with people, even a new song.
There's much more at austinchronicle.com.
For more on Wilco's upcoming tour dates, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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