Red-Eyed and Blue*

Now that was what I needed.

Here, the guys from Wilco - plus a couple of their friends from the Minus 5, or this other band you might have heard of ... R.E.M. - open the second encore of last night's show with the long-awaited and much loved "California Stars." This was the biggest sing-a-long portion of last night's concert, by far. Maybe it's just the Oklahoman in me, but Woody Guthrie's lyrics just seem to call out for that, don't they?

From left: Nels Cline, Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5/R.E.M. on keyboards, Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche on drums, John Stirratt on bass, Peter Buck of the Minus 5/R.E.M. and Pat Sansone on keyboards.

First, the setlist from Edgefield...

Either Way; You Are My Face; I Am Trying to Break Your Heart; Remember the Mountain Bed; Handshake Drugs; Pot Kettle Black; A Shot in the Arm; Side with the Seeds; Shake it Off; War on War; Impossible Germany; Too Far Apart; Jesus, Etc.; Walken; I'm the Man who Loves You; Hummingbird; On and On and On. 1st encore: Bob Dylan's 49th Beard, The Late Greats, Hate it Here, I'm Always in Love, Outta Mind (Outta Site). 2nd encore: California Stars (with McCaughey on keyboards and Buck on electric guitar), Heavy Metal Drummer, Via Chicago and Spiders (Kidsmoke)

That's 26 songs over more than two hours.

And no matter how much pints of beer or bottles of wine people drank or how much pot they smoked - and there was so much of the latter that Tweedy inquired about the "bongfire" raging in the first few rows - they came away in awe of Nels Cline's guitar masterwork.

Holy shit. The things that man can do with a guitar might very well be illegal in some parts of the Bible Belt. I could have spent the better part of the evening just happily watching him get lost in the music whenever that downright possessed, ecstasy-striken expression would overcome him. Every once in a while - such as in the photo above, with Tweedy during a shared jam - Cline would peel one eye open and look up to see whether a) everyone else was still with him and b) his I've-gone-utterly-ape-shit licks had ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe and caused the world to start to collapse in on itself.

Obviously, I never got to see some of the great guitarists of the past, but listening to Cline so intensely rip through a show makes me wonder what Hendrix would've been like in person. Especially considering Tweedy has a reputation for not wanting to be upstaged, what happened at the end of the show during "Via Chicago" was amazing to watch.

In the second half or so of last night's live version there was a section where Cline would create so much feedback from his guitar that it would almost entirely mute the lines Tweedy was singing. They'd go back and forth like that - a run of audible lyrics interrupted by a drenching torrent of notes from which lyrics would suddenly re-emerge - until they brought it all together in a sudden, crisp, perfectly timed stop. As my friend Jann would say, it was a moment to be filed under "live music experiences."

And then, sadly, after one more song the lights came up and it was all over.

* Note: Tweaked the last couple of grafs because I originally wrote - incorrectly - that they were playing "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" when Cline started drowning out Tweedy. In fact, it was the second-to-last song, "Via Chicago." My mistake.