Next week I'll post my first essay on the book for July, which is Why Not Moderation?: Letters to Young Radicals. But I am just back from a three-day music festival in northwest Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. I am on vacation this week and so I thought I'd share a little bit about the Solid Sound festival experience.
Solid Sound is organized and curated by Wilco, the Chicago-based band led by Jeff Tweedy. The festival is 14 years old and takes place every other year. This was the eighth festival, because they originally did festivals back to back years in 2010 and 2011 and then decided to do it biannually (that’s my best estimate from some perfunctory internet research).
We came for the first time two years ago, in 2022. I had wanted to go for many years, but our kids were always too young, and too numerous. There ARE a lot of young kids at this festival, and more power to those parents, but Ali and I were quite happy to just have two of our older kids with us this year.
The festival has lived up to my expectations both times now and become a highlight of our year. For three days, I'm very disconnected from my phone or any screens. I'm with my wife and our kids. And we're watching live music on the grounds of a spectacular art museum, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which is massive complex housed in and around the buildings of a former textile factory.
Live music is one of my favorite art forms, and my appreciation has only grown over the last decade or so. In 2011, I noticed — in a new way — how the act of playing music together connected the members of a family strings band (the Gawler Family band, from Maine) and literally transfigured them in front of my eyes. The Gawlers also incorporated a lot of group singing on that rainy day under a tent, and that lifted my spirits.
I love the dynamism of live music, how you can watch and feel the creative act taking place as the different band members reach out for one another sonically and emotionally, constantly reacting and adjusting until everything clicks into place and they find that groove and just go. It’s like watching them surf a wave and then getting pulled along in their wake.
“At the core of any creative act is an impulse to make manifest our powerful desire to connect—with others, with ourselves, with the sacred, with God,” Jeff Tweedy wrote in How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back.
The four of us camped together at the festival, and that added to the camraderie. We stayed up quite late, for us, Friday and Saturday. Wilco played two-hour sets both nights that ran until almost 11:30 p.m. Friday was a "Deep Cuts" performance of songs they rarely play live. Saturday night turned into a performance of A Ghost is Born from beginning to end, something I didn't realize until days later when I read about it. After the Saturday night session, Ali and I gave the kids a hard time that we wanted to keep partying — dancing at Sylvan Esso's DJ set — while they were saying they wanted to go to bed. On Sunday afternoon, we killed time during a thunderstorm delay, sitting together on the floor of one of Mass Moca's many huge industrial-size art display rooms, telling jokes that made our 12-year old laugh and our 16-year old groan.
Wilco and its music has been a touchstone for our family. I fell in love with Ali during the summer of 2004. She didn't return the favor right away. In my misery, I listened to Wilco's just-released album that year A Ghost is Born. (Ali and I argue over which of us introduced the band to the other). It seems hard to believe, and we don't have video, but at our wedding late in 2005, our first dance was to a song off that album: "Muzzle of Bees."
Since then, we've gone to countless live shows, often taking our kids along with us. Wilco's music has been a big part of the soundtrack to our lives. And there has been no shortage of new material to accompany us.
Wilco is probably best known to casual fans for their 2001 album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But that's just one album out of roughly 30 that Jeff Tweedy, who's 56, has released over the last 34 years. By my unofficial count, Tweedy has released 30 music albums since 1990, through six different bands: Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Golden Smog, Loose Fur, Tweedy (or The Tweedy Band), and his solo albums. Jeff has also published three books in the last six years. And each of the band members in Wilco have their own side musical projects as well, who all perform at Solid Sound as well.
There was a lot of angst in those early aught Wilco albums YHF and Ghost is Born. But much of Tweedy's songwriting over the past 20 years since then has been about growing up, even as it has remained rooted in a tragic disposition. After some drug addiction and mental health issues, he's found equilibrium in sobriety, devotion to family, and creating a community of artistry that is on full display at Solid Sound.
That community grew stronger during COVID, when Jeff and his sons Spencer and Sammy would do an hour of live music on Instagram, filmed by Jeff's wife Susie on her phone. These shows were sometimes a few a week, always punctually at 9 p.m. Central time. Ali and I were often among the 1,000 or so people watching, finding comfort in this community and in the music they played, at a time of great uncertainty and crisis. It was then that we saw Jeff and Susie's relationships with their kids, and how much the now-adult sons love being around their parents and playing music with their dad.
Susie did not make it to Solid Sound this year, since she is receiving cancer treatment, her second bout with the disease. Jeff was obviously emotional throughout the weekend, choking up on multiple occasions. On the final night of the Solid Sound festival, Jeff played a show with a band that featured his Spencer on drums and Sammy on vocals, along with a few others. As music Instagrammer Neil Marks put it, Susie's absence was "clearly a catalyst for this set" on Sunday night. "The setlist comprised largely of songs that explored the theme of mortality from a number of angles (featuring songs from Jeff's solo catalog plus a number of new songs), and ultimately served as a celebration of life, love, family and friendship."
One of the final songs they played was "Friendship," which was written by Pops Staples, Mavis' father (Jeff has produced a few of Mavis' more recent albums, and Spencer played drums on them). We first heard this song on one of the COVID-era Tweedy Shows. Our 16-year old got up out of his seat and put his arms around Ali and I and our 12-year old as we sang along.
A few other thoughts:
As I said, Jeff Tweedy's creative output over the last 30 years has been prolific. The force of Tweedy's creative drive is so great that it has inspired me to ask myself, What am I creating? I had a few of those moments at the festival, where I snapped out of spectator mode for a few moments and remembered to take the inspiration from this weekend into the rest of my life. "Each act of creativity is an act of defiance in a world that often feels determined to destroy itself ... We have a choice — to be on the side of creation, or surrender to the powers that destroy," Tweedy writes.
The theme of youthfulness came to mind many times during the festival. The energy and optimism of young people is an eternal source of hope and renewal, and I'm seeing that firsthand as our children grow into teens and young adults. But it's also life-affirming to see people who are in the second half of their lives, who are living youthfully. By youthful I don't mean living recklessly or consuming excessively. I mean that I saw so many people in their 50's, 60's and 70's rocking out, sometimes to bands they knew and sometimes to bands they'd never heard before. I saw them dancing energetically alongside young 20-somethings at the late night dance music DJ set (hello Bob and Jane from Iowa!), and nodding along to the screamo thrash/punk group Soul-Glo. To make one's self like a child — having a sense of wonder, open to new and different forms of art, putting one's self in the path of inspiration and revelation — breaks up the calcification that causes humans to withdraw from those who are different from them, to retreat into tribalism and fear. It’s in the same spirit that Tweedy describes as his approach to songwriting: “I look at the artistic gift as more about communication and the ability to be oneself. And not just about being able to execute a piece of music perfectly,” he writes. “To me, showing up with a reliably open heart and a will to share whatever spirit you can muster is what resonates and transcends technical perfection.”
I should mention a few of the musicians and groups we saw that stood out. Wilco chooses every act that performs, and they usually invite a handful of bigger names alongside younger acts who have not yet broken out, and then a few older acts who maybe never got their due. Here's who stood out to me this year:
Mikaela Davis: this Rochester native is a classically trained harpist who is also the lead singer of a full rock band. I don't think I'd ever seen that before. But it's not just novelty. Davis and her band Southern Star sound amazing and play with swagger. I watched them and thought I might see them on a late night TV show performance some time soon.
The Ratboys: this Chicago band has been at it for over a decade and sounded so great live. I didn't listen to their music before the festival because I somehow missed their name. But I'm listening now.
Courtney Marie Andrews: she's been around for a while, and has put out six albums, and I'd listened to her a bit. But she's really good.
Fenne Lilly: Another female lead singer, Fenne is 27 and born and raised in the UK. Check out her release from last year, Big Picture.
Hope you have a great Fourth of July, and I'll be back with a news roundup on Friday.
Thanks for sharing about the joys of live music. During the Covid lockdown I found myself missing “real” church the most. What I missed second was attending concerts.
Covid-era church was horribly deficient. I played bass with our socially distanced praise team, doing a worship set in an empty room for our live stream and then taking our socially distanced places out among all those vacant seats before listening to a sermon.
It was even less than that during the weeks when I wasn’t playing and merely sat at home in front of a screen, singing along with my wife and feeling less than really present while our pastor preached. At some level, I think God uniquely honors the assembly of His people, and whenever I miss a Sunday and must merely stream my way in, I know I am less edified that I would have been if I had been ”really there,” and I can’t help but believe that God is less glorified as well.
For some the concert experience is a replacement for church. For me, it’s a supplement. Yesterday, I celebrated the 4th while listening to a live band playing cover tunes. Jesus was not mentioned from the stage, but those men playing instruments and singing in real time in the same physical space as their audience was a gift from God.
Also, thanks for sharing the Tweedy quote below. It’s the way I feel about my own writing and music, certainly, but I’m not sure “any” creative act is so noble. I’m afraid some people create in a desperate attempt to project their egos and set themselves above others instead of desiring real connection. I know I had some of that mixed into what I did when I was younger. I’m too old for that nonsense now.
“At the core of any creative act is an impulse to make manifest our powerful desire to connect—with others, with ourselves, with the sacred, with God,” Jeff Tweedy wrote in How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back.
Thanks for a very life-affirming post. It’s nice to be reminded of the joy of connecting with others whether personally or communally. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the “big” issues of our day and lose sight of the actual people with whom we share this crazy world. Thanks for the reminder!