A good friend of mine once had a regular Monday gig playing music at a Greenwich Village bar and he would often say, “A Monday night in New York City is like a Saturday night anywhere else.” Finding myself in Nijmegen on a Monday night seeing Wilco perform for the first time ever there, I wondered if the audience in the ancient Dutch city could somehow ascend to a similarly elevated level of enthusiasm.
Welllll…let’s just say that Jeff didn’t make any comments about the crowd being better than expected (which usually comes in the form of something like “You’re a [insert early day of the week] audience, but it feels like you’re a [insert later day of the week] audience.”) Yet he did seem genuinely happy to be here, whether or not he could actually pronounce the name of the place, and he even did something I’ve never seen him do before. During the outro of Hummingbird, he came over to two very enthusiastic young guys at stage right and then proceeded to quickly jog down the line toward stage left giving high fives to the entire front row.
“You guys are so far away — I just wanted to put my hands on you,” Jeff explained afterward. Then he added, jokingly: “But (this gap between band and audience) is for your safety. We’re contagious. No, we’re not.”
If Jeff had really wanted to be cheeky, though, he would have put Too Far Apart on the setlist. How else to describe the layout for this show at the Concertgebouw De Vereeniging, a venue that apparently holds about 1,800 for non-classical concerts between a good-sized general admission standing floor, some seats behind that and a U-shaped balcony? On the plus side, there was no barricade and the stage was a nice height for those up front, maybe about four feet high. However, that was countered by the band being set up almost comically far back from the front row — at least 12 feet, by my estimation — for some reason. (If I had to guess, it must have had something to do with the sightlines for the people sitting in the back on the orchestra level.)
In any case, the physical disconnect between band and audience resulted in Jeff trying especially hard to forge a connection during the 1-hour, 50-minute set. Early on, he tried to get the pronunciation of Nijmegen right before telling the audience members he might just call them, “You guys.” Then Jeff added: “We’ve never been here before. We always love going somewhere new,” before looking around at his bandmates and asking, “We’ve never been here before, right guys? Just checking.” (At least Jeff didn’t make the mistake support act Hovvdy did by calling Nijmegen a “nice little town,” which drew an audible reaction — and not in a good way.)
Other amusing exchanges with the Nijmegans (Nijmegites? Nijmegians?) included a brief back-and-forth when Jeff said in part, “You guys are awesome.” In response, someone apparently yelled back, “I told you!” which left the frontman confused for a second before he replied, “Oh, that you guys would be awesome? I knew that.” As the set continued, Jeff told the audience, “We’ve got more. We’re only about halfway through. No, actually, we’re getting toward the back half.” When someone booed the notion of the show winding down, Jeff shot back in a sarcastic tone, “Sorry. We’re not here for fucking ever, man.” Another quip came when Jeff introduced the new song Losing Traction — which was performed for the first time outside of the U.S. — and asked, “Are there any Americans here? I don’t blame you for being quiet.”
After weeks of a pretty static setlist with the two-set “Evening With…” format, it was nice to see things jumbled up at least a little bit despite it being a shorter show overall. Sunken Treasure was an excellent surprise mid-set, not having been played since the first “regular” (i.e. non-Sky Blue Sky Festival) show of the year in Fort Wayne, Ind., while the full band broke out A Shot In The Arm for the first time in nearly a full calendar year — 25 August 2025, a.k.a. Jeff’s birthday, for what it’s worth.
There seemed to be a little confusion at the start of the encore, as guitar tech Jeff Tweedy initially brought out an electric guitar for actual Jeff Tweedy — that will never get old — before switching to an acoustic. That sometimes indicates an audible, but apparently not in this case since the encore went according to the planned setlist (minus The Late Greats and Spiders (Kidsmoke), which got cut). I found it kind of funny that Jeff and Co. thought they could actually get in a five-song encore, including Spiders, given the presumed 11 p.m. curfew they already exceeded by nearly 10 minutes. But one thing was for sure — that Wilco would send this crowd home with, Jeff said, “a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll because it never goes out of style.” And so despite it being a bit late, those who stuck it out got just that with I Got You (At The End Of The Century) and all of the Jeff screaming, Pat windmilling and Glenn cowbelling that goes along with it.
My only gripes? Well, the lack of Monday on Monday, of course. I wasn’t expecting it, but come on, give the people what they want. (There’s one more Monday show on this European run, in Rome on Aug. 31…hint hint.) And more importantly as it relates to this show, could we not get Kingpin, if only to hear Jeff try to change the lyric to “livin’ in…Nijmegen”? Total missed opportunity! I would have paid extra to hear Jeff try to pronounce that in the moment. Alas. Maybe next time. I bet a Saturday night show — and crowd — in Nijmegen would be epic…
Here was the complete setlist, as played (as mentioned, The Late Greats and Spiders (Kidsmoke) were also in the encore on the printed setlist, but weren’t played):
Handshake Drugs
If I Ever Was A Child
Via Chicago
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Evicted
Bird Without A Tail/Base Of My Skull
I’m Always In Love (acoustic arrangement)
new song-Losing Traction
Annihilation
Hummingbird
Sunken Treasure (acoustic arrangement; Jeff on acoustic, no harmonica)
War On War
Jesus, etc.
Impossible Germany
Hate It Here
Walken
Heavy Metal Drummer>
I’m The Man Who Loves You
Encore
A Shot In The Arm
California Stars
I’m The Man Who Loves You
Don’t blame you if you don’t remember, Paul (different name on here), but I’ve said to you before that the absolute peak of this internet thing was reading reviews of early Wilco, within hours of a show in Oven Chips, Iowa, or somewhere, from a different continent. So finding this, the day after the show, is lovely: it’s like you’ve brought back the mid 90s and the Postcard mailing list.
Nijmegen - the bridge before the bridge too far. Ta.