Getting beyond the myth

Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:13 AM by John Roderick

Wilco
I have no real problem with rock mythologizing. If Slash from Guns N' Roses wants to act like he’s too busy playing with his Burmese Python to have sex with the foxy model in his bed, OK. Likewise when Eddie Vedder traded his high-tops and Lakers jersey for combat boots, a flannel shirt and a drinking problem.

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There’s only one type of rock mythologizing I can’t abide, and that’s the “I’m so fragile, so sensitive, that I’ll just DIE if I have to do one more press conference” type. Jeff Tweedy made a feature-length film about how much he hated being on camera, (and so did Radiohead, come to think of it), and people lapped it up like clotted cream. Barf.

So I was pretty sure Wilco was baloney, and all the hero worship around them was just atheists looking for a saint. But their performance shut me up a little.

Jeff Tweedy made the Bonnaroo mainstage feel like somebody’s living room sofa, and that is an amazing feat. They played rock and they played country and they played folk and it all felt intimate and real, not at all contrived, which is hard to do even if you’re ON somebody’s sofa. I still think it’s pretty bunk to be a grown man who hides behind his hands like a five-year-old, but Jeff Tweedy was standing tall at Bonnaroo.