Watch: Wilco Perform At Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame Induction
Footage of Wilco performing with a line-up of special guests at their Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame induction has been released. The Chicago-based alternative rock band were honoured alongside Lucinda Williams and Texas singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo at the ceremony back in October 2021 and the US broadcaster PBS has just aired the footage – the whole ceremony is available to wacth here.
Wilco’s performance at the ceremony was capped off by a rendition of fan-favourite California Stars for which the band were joined by Rosanne Cash, Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Sheila E, and Terry Allen, Japanese Breakfast and more.
Wilco were inducted by country great Rosanne Cash, who referred to Jeff Tweedy’s group as “heartland laborers in the tower of song” and praised them for being “subversive without being destructive” with music that “somehow breaks us and heals us at the same time.” With Wilco’s music, she summarized, “we don’t need certainty when we love the question.”
Accepting the award with bandmates John Stirratt, Glenn Kotche, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen, Tweedy thanked the city of Austin and admitted that “I didn’t anticipate being teary-eyed at this moment.” He also gave a shoutout to former members Ken Coomer, Max Johnston, Bob Egan, Leroy Bach and the late Jay Bennett, all of whom helped shaped the band’s music in its first decade.
The band and their guests went on to perform a short set, starting with A Shot In The Arm from their classic 1999 album, Summerteeth, with Lloyd Maines sitting in on pedal steel. Tweedy noted that Maines played on Wilco’s 1995 debut album, A.M, as well as Tweedy’s former band Uncle Tupelo’s final album, 1993’s Anodyne.
Next came singer Bill Callahan, joined by Wilco’s Nels Cline on lap steel, performing the title track to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky. Iconoclastic sculptor-songwriter Terry Allen then delivered a solo piano-and-vocal rendition of One Sunday Morning from 2011’s The Whole Love. The band then returned, inviting Michelle Zauner of indie group Japanese Breakfast to sing lead vocals on Jesus, Etc, from the group’s 2001 album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Then came the star-studded finale of California Stars, “This is so gonna be worth it” quipped Tweedy as the stage filled with guests and the band performed the track from their Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Billy Bragg.