Wilco satisfies enthusiastic Sioux Falls crowd at Washington Pavilion

Late in their set on Monday night at the Washington Pavilion, veteran rock band Wilco paused to gather themselves between songs, and a number of fans from the packed theater began calling out requests.

The Grammy-winning band is apparently receptive to such pleas – you can request a song on their website leading up to a show – and as fans shouted at frontman Jeff Tweedy from all corners of the venue, the lead singer strained to make them out.

“What was that?” he said in the direction of a fan a few rows from the left side of the stage.

“Play some Son Volt,” the guy said, eliciting groans from those around him.

I don’t have the time or space to explain to non-Wilco fans why that was pretty rude (Google it if you want to know), but Tweedy, to his credit, shook it off with a quick joke and launched his band into "California Stars," a Woody Guthrie song the band brilliantly reinvented with English folk icon Billy Bragg in the late '90s.

Two songs later, just to show there were no hard feelings, Tweedy approached the mic and asked if anyone wanted to hear a song from their debut album, 1995’s "A.M." When the fans roared their approval, Tweedy looked back in the direction of that guy and shrugged, “That’s probably as close as we’re going to get to Son Volt,” and they ripped into "Box Full of Letters," their first-ever single as a band and the song that introduced me, then 15 years old, to the band via an appearance on "Beavis & Butt-head" (to the best of my recollection, the headbanging dynamic duo approved of the song).

Multi-generational fans turn out for Wilco concert

Nearly 30 years later, Wilco can stake a claim as one of the last great rock and roll bands from whatever you want to call their era – the compact disc era, the MTV era, etc.

And now a dozen albums in, with Tweedy in his mid-50s, they enjoy the kind of multi-generational fanbase earned by like-minded predecessors like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the Replacements.

Monday’s show was populated by anyone in Sioux Falls who would qualify as a gray-haired hipster, but the couple in front of me that held hands and sung along to each song to each other couldn’t have been in their 30s yet, and there were plenty of folks there like them.

If you’ve been to any show in Sioux Falls over the years, you know we don’t exactly have a reputation for being the liveliest of audiences (maybe the bro-country shows are different, I wouldn’t know). Sioux Falls music fans have been known to sit on their hands and clap politely no matter how much they are implored to get up and shake it, but Monday’s generational melting pot was surprisingly spry.

Crowd stays on their feet

After a pleasant warm-up set from Minneapolis’ the Cactus Blossoms (whose soft southwestern-tinged rock channeled the Everly Brothers and the BoDeans), the crowd rose to its feet as soon as Tweedy and company appeared, giving the band a wild welcome and staying on their feet for the duration. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to an indoor show in Sioux Falls where I didn’t eventually have to sit back down because everyone else was.

After opening with "Handshake Drugs" from 2004’s "A Ghost is Born," they cut to "I Am My Mother" and the title track from their new record, the warmly enjoyable double-album "Cruel Country," before turning to the show-stopping "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" from their 2001 masterpiece "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," which elicited the night’s first fan sing-along.

After a few more new and old songs that lost some momentum, the band delivered an energetic take of "Hummingbird," which Tweedy revealed in his 2018 memoir "Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)" was his late father’s favorite song of his. Then the band took its first break to interact with the crowd.

After what appeared to be a couple of Star Wars jokes (that was the title of the band’s 2015 album), someone (pretty sure it was the Son Volt guy, actually), called out to Tweedy "You’re the GOAT." I’m assuming Tweedy knew what that meant (greatest of all time), but he pretended not to.

“That’s not very nice,” he said, before (sensing that chatting with the crowd on this night was perhaps not worth the effort) adding, “Thank you for participating in the performance.”

After closing the set with fan-favorite "Heavy Metal Drummer" and "I'm the Man Who Loves You" – with Tweedy on lead guitar, they exited the stage.

Show ends with a true rocker

It was at this point I realized they hadn’t played a single song from 1996’s breakthrough "Being There."

They solved that in the encore, thankfully, closing out the show with "Monday" and "Outtasite (Outtamind)." It had taken two full hours to get to "Being There," or to hear a true rocker, but it was worth the wait.

Sioux Falls had been gaining some serious momentum as a live music destination before the pandemic, and the process of getting back to that point is still ongoing, particularly for non-arena acts. This was a sturdy step in the right direction.

“We should do this again sometime,” Tweedy said before the last song of the night.

Indeed we should, Jeff.

Setlist, Wilco, Sept. 12 at the Washington Pavilion

• Handshake Drugs

• I Am My Mother

• Cruel Country

• I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

• Hints

• War on War

• How to Fight Loneliness

• Via Chicago

• At Least That’s What You Said

• Story to Tell

• Hummingbird

• Tired of Taking it Out on You

• Bird Without a Tail

• Jesus, Etc.

• Impossible Germany

• Love is Everywhere (Beware)

• California Stars

• A Lifetime to Find

• Box Full of Letters

• Heavy Metal Drummer

• I’m the Man Who Loves You

• Encore

• Falling Apart (Right Now)

• Monday

• Outtasite (Outtamind)

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Enthusiastic Sioux Falls crowd turns out for Wilco concert