WILCO: ASHES OF AMERICAN FLAGS

WILCO: ASHES OF AMERICAN FLAGS
Weds, Apr 15, 9:50pm at the Ritz
Grab your advance tix here!

It’s entirely possible that Wilco is the most filmed band of its generation: There was the 1997 HBO special, its part in the 1999 Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie documentary MAN IN THE SAND, its own 2002 documentary I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART and three appearances on AUSTIN CITY LIMITS.

Taken together, they are a chronicle of the band’s evolution from ragged roots-rockers to what Old 97’s singer Rhett Miller once called “German noise machine.” Each incarnation of Wilco has had its charms, but the current lineup is easily the tightest and most technically adept version of the band, as deftly shown on ASHES OF AMERICAN FLAGS (Nonesuch), a new film by Brendan Canty and Christoph Green.

Part concert film, part documentary, ASHES captures one of America’s best bands at its absolute height. The movie is lovingly shot, with intimate close-ups while the band performs interspersed with shots framing skeletal trees stark against the gloaming sky as Wilco’s tour bus rolls through empty expanses of America.

There’s plenty of interaction with the band, with the musicians talking about the musical qualities of one another and offering insights into themselves: Pat Sansone talks about taking Polaroids of fading pieces of American cities, John Stirratt recounts growing up outside New Orleans, Nels Cline talks about giving himself whiplash on stage and Jeff Tweedy muses philosophically over the role of music in modern life. There’s evidence here of a tighter bond in this group than there has been at any other time in Wilco’s 15-year history.

The most electrifying moments, though, come when the band is on stage, as Cline rips into his guitar solo on “Impossible Germany,” or Glenn Kotche furiously attacks his drums in the noisy middle part of “Via Chicago,” or, perhaps best of all, the whole band tears through “Shot in the Arm” with white-hot intensity.

It’s the next best thing to actually seeing Wilco in concert. (listendammit.com)