Wilco's Cary concert delights

CARY -- Wilco's Jeff Tweedy is one of the sneakiest record-makers in popular music. Recent years have found him making a series of Wilco albums that seemed dull and even lifeless at first listen. But those albums always seemed to have just enough appeal to keep you coming back to them -- and when you hear those songs played live, they'll knock you flat.

So it was that Wilco played Friday night at Cary's Booth Amphitheatre, touring behind last year's subdued "Sky Blue Sky." And the two-hour show was truly great, bringing those and other songs to life in ways you would not have thought possible.

Following years of personnel turmoil, Tweedy has kept the same lineup together through Wilco's past two albums. It's still a great performance ensemble, anchored by the rhythm section of drummer Glenn Kotche and bassist John Stirratt plus atmospheric keyboard/guitar contributions from Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen.

But guitarist Nels Cline is truly Wilco's secret weapon nowadays, and the perfect lead-guitar foil for Tweedy. Tweedy's standard songwriting mode is to start out ruminative and then explode into chaos, with wall-of-skronk sound effects and float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-bee leads serving as the main emphasis points. "You Are My Face" and "Muzzle of Bees" were particularly effective, building from delicate picking to overdrive guitar riffing.

Yet it still took a while for the show's pace to pick up, which Tweedy acknowledged about a half-hour into the proceedings.

"Is everyone comfortable?" he asked in his initial address to the crowd. "It's a nice night. We'll take our time tonight; perform correctly."

The first five-star moment came shortly afterward with "Remember the Mountain Bed," a dreamy bit of folk surrealism that first appeared on the 2000 Woody Guthrie tribute album "Mermaid Avenue Vol. II." The words tumbled out, tortured images of hunger and injustice in marked contrast to the gliding acoustic arrangement. It was truly lovely, rewarded with prolonged applause.

"You guys are really nice," Tweedy said. "It's getting dark, I can't see you anymore. But I can smell how nice you are."

Fittingly enough, the evening's first whiff of cannabis wafted by during the next song -- which just happened to be called "Handshake Drugs."

Tweedy and band gradually stoked the tempo as the set wore on, although "Reservations" dragged things down toward the end. But the following "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" closed the pre-encore segment in style.

In its recorded version on 2004's "A Ghost Is Born," "Spiders" seems silly and indulgent. Live, however, you don't mind that it goes on for 10 minutes just so long as they keep beating the bejezus out of the song's whiplash riff. Fists were waved.

The encore version of "I'm the Man Who Loves You," juiced by a horn section, was just icing on the cake.