Wilco
May 26, 1995
Let it Be Record Store (in-store performance)
Minneapolis, MN

Source: unknown audience recording
Lineage: analog master > unknown analog copies > my analog tape > Nakamichi MR2 > analog transfer > Tascam CD-RW402 (16/44) > CDR (raw file) > hard drive > Audacity (track splits) > FLAC16

01 tuning
02 If That’s Alright
03 Black Eye
04 tuning
05 Pecan Pie
06 Don’t You Honey Me
07 Who Were You Thinking Of?
08 Give Back The Key To My Heart
09 Reincarnation
10 Screen Door
11 Promising
12 Listen To Her Heart
13 Watch Me Fall
14 Acuff-Rose


FFP file included. No artwork.

Found this in a pile of old tapes from my tape trading days. This was a free in store performance at the sadly missed Let it Be Record store, taking place in between Wilco's first 2 shows in the First Avenue main room, a few blocks away. Wilco ended up playing First Ave/7th St Entry something like 16 times from 1994-2001, so this was a memorable 2 days with 2 shows at First Ave (with Pavement and Dirty Three also on the bill) plus this rare in-store performance. Wilco has always had a strong connection to MN, dating all the way back to the beginning; this show is almost exactly 7 months after Wilco’s MN debut, in the 7th St Entry in November 1994, one of the very first Wilco shows ever.

At first, the band seems a bit discombobulated for this performance but once they get going they end up playing for almost 45 minutes, a lot more than the “4 songs” they had evidently promised. The recording quality is quite good and the setlist is very interesting: covers by Doug Sahm, Roger Miller and Tom Petty, several Uncle Tupelo songs (UT was barely a year gone at this point), a couple of long forgotten early Wilco outtakes, a future Golden Smog classic and…not a single song from Wilco's debut album, which had come out just 2 months before this performance!

This is a straight transfer, no EQ, de-hissing or any other processing. No pitch adjusting, either. Tweedy's voice sounds lower in pitch than it does these days, but he had sinus surgery in 2003 and that noticeably changed the sound of his voice. There’s a LOT of between song tuning and putzing around, and plenty of “helpful” song suggestions from the crowd - all intact on the recording, no matter how much I wanted to edit them out :).