Wilmington's ready for Wilco (The Return)

Wilco at the Grand (Credit: Jessica Bratton)

Eleven months to the day after Wilco made their long-awaited Delaware debut at The Grand, the band is making good on its promise to return to Wilmington, performing at Frawley Stadium at 7:30 p.m. Friday, with Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band opening the show. Tickets are $35 and are still available at www.ticketsatthegrand.org until 5 p.m. today, at The Grand's box office from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and at the Frawley Stadium box office from 1 p.m. until showtime.

Ryan Cormier is Twittering from Wilco's soundcheck! Go to www.twitter.com/ryancormier.

And for another (admittedly less expert and probably far more digressive) point of view, Matt Sullivan will be Twittering for Metromix at www.twitter.com/Del_Metromix, starting around showtime at 7:30 p.m.

In the months leading up to the release of the band's seventh album, Wilco was on the receiving end of plenty of publicity -- just not the kind you want when you're rolling out a new batch of music.

First, former band member Jay Bennett filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against frontman Jeff Tweedy in early May asking for $50,000, a full eight years after the multi-instrumentalist and the band parted ways.

About two weeks after that, the new album, entitled "Wilco (The Album)," leaked online more than a month before it's proper release last week. The band fought back by streaming the album on their Web site for all to hear for free, something they have done before since their most recent works always seem to illicitly appear online before hitting store shelves.

And then a week later, the 45-year-old Bennett was found dead in his Illinois home from an accidental overdose of the prescription painkiller fentanyl.

Bennett, who was a driving force behind the band's masterpiece, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," had been with the band from 1994 to 2001 until their very public split, which was captured in the Sam Jones documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco."

The Chicago sextet, which has transitioned over the years from an alternative country to a indie rock sound, now faces a full summer of tour dates -- including Friday in Wilmington -- to promote the album, trying to move past what has been a bizarre few months of disappointment and sadness.

Some good news arrived Wednesday that should help: "Wilco (The Album)" debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard charts this week, making it the most successful sales week in the band's 15-year history.

Considering all he has been though recently, Tweedy was cheerful when we talked to him on his tour bus by phone.

Our talk came two days after Wilco's performance at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, in Tennessee, where the band found themselves playing on the festival's biggest stage, which hosted Bruce Springsteen just after their set. Tweedy joked with the crowd, "If anybody boos us tonight, we have a built-in excuse: 'They're just yelling 'Bruuuce.'"

It is one of only four concerts on Wilco's summer tour to take place in a minor league baseball park, so we talked to Tweedy about performing in a ballpark, the album leak, and, of course, the loss of one of Wilco's most dynamic members.

During your concert here in Wilmington last summer, you promised the crowd you'd come back to town. We didn't expect it to be the very next summer, after it took us 14 years to get you into town.

I'm happy we're coming back so soon and still feel awful that it took us that long to get there. [Laughs.]

Your show here at Frawley Stadium is one of only a few at a minor league ballpark. Wilco has done this before and I know you're a baseball fan. Is there a different vibe to those shows, and why have a show in a ballpark to begin with?

We played one in 2007 in Louisville, Ky., and it was a really nice environment to play rock music in a small baseball stadium. If you're going to do an outdoor show, it's better than a lot of the sheds and outdoor amphitheaters, which sound really awful a lot of times. Even early on we opened for R.E.M. in a baseball park in Boise, Idaho. I think that was our first experience.

"Wilco (The Album)" marks the first time the entire band lineup has remained for a second album together. How did that stability affect these sessions compared to past albums?

It made it a lot smoother, and communication is kind of at an all-time high. [Laughs.] And being able to know each others' strengths. I don't know. For whatever reason, it's nice to experience finally. The chemistry has remained really strong with this lineup of the band. And I think that all translated into a fairly effortless time making a record. I don't remember making any records that went any smoother than this one.

Are you kind of wishing they had made a film during the making of this album also to show that it can be smooth?

Yeah, I guess for us. But for most people, human nature makes them rather see the dirt and the unraveling that took place on ["Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."]

"Wilco (The Song)," a love song to your fans, seems perfectly crafted for live shows. What has the reaction been so far? You opened your Bonnaroo set with it.

It's been good. It's the same kind of feeling that happens a lot when the record is out, but it's not really out. There is a sizeable percentage of the audience that is Internet savvy and knows everything and there's always that sense that there are a lot of people looking around going, "How do you know this?" [Laughs.]

And what about the album cover? The Autumn de Wilde photo shows a camel named Alfred in a hat at what appears to be a deserted children's birthday party. Is that an inside joke of some sort?

We actually rented the camel for the day for our photo shoot because we wanted an animal and we couldn't get a baby elephant. We wanted a big animal to kind of stand around with as a member of the band. At some point, we had the idea of setting up a birthday party and figured the party would be for the camel. That picture was snapped as it was getting set up and it just ended up being striking. It really provoked the thought that I hoped would be provoked by an album cover, which is, "How the hell did that happen and am I invited?"

It's been a rough time in the world of Wilco recently. First, I noticed you fought back against the album being leaked by streaming it on your site, which you have also done in the past. You seem to have a very laid-back demeanor when it comes to your music being out there, whether it be leaks or fans recording shows.

That model is easy for Wilco. I don't know if it works for other people, but it works for us because we have always survived by playing a lot of shows and touring. We make a little bit of money off our records, but we basically survive by playing live. You can't digitize that. You can't make that a download. That gives us a certain amount of freedom and confidence to use the Internet kind of like a radio. But on a more philosophical slant, I have to come to terms with Wilco being business. It has been for a long time. But at the same time, I don't have to embrace that side over the side of me that aspires to be an artist and musician first. If you're that first, you really shouldn't spend any amount of time whatsoever preventing people from hearing your music. I think that's antithetical to the idea.

And then we had the Jay Bennett lawsuit and then his unexpected death. Given the way he left the band and then the lawsuit, was your reaction to his death as jumbled as one might think considering the way it all went down?

Yeah. Certainly not having any contact with Jay for eight years and the way that he left the band and, yeah, then the lawsuit, it would be impossible for any of us -- and myself especially -- to not have built up a lot of ambivalence over the years. But it didn't inhibit at all the shock and the sadness of knowing somebody who was here that isn't here anymore -- somebody you knew and loved and cared about. I don't know. To me, it's just really sad. We all would have been very, very happy to see Jay thriving in the time after Wilco in a way that he was capable of, and I don't know if we got to see that. And I guess we'll never know now.

I heard that instead of a funeral his family is considering holding a memorial concert in his honor. Is that something you would take part in if you were asked?

I had not heard of anything like that.

After performing at a few fundraisers for President Barack Obama, who actually introduced Wilco at 2005's Farm Aid, have you received any presidential perks since Jan. 20? A White House tour perhaps?

No. We haven't been in the vicinity since then. But I think we might get a White House tour on this leg that includes Wilmington.