Photos and Review by Jolene Rheault
CHARLOTTE, NC — A humid Thursday night settled over Charlotte as The Amp Ballantyne hosted a pairing that felt handpicked for emotional excavation. Waxahatchee opened the evening with a quietly stunning set, setting the tone with her signature blend of indie folk and Southern-rooted melancholy. Katie Crutchfield’s vocals cut clean through the warm dusk, delivering each line like a diary entry set to melody—raw, resolute, and hauntingly intimate. Backed by a band that knows how to leave space without losing weight, she drew the crowd in gently, offering no theatrics, just truth.
When Wilco took the stage, they didn’t so much explode as bloom—slow, deliberate, and unshakably confident. “Company in My Back” began the slow unraveling, followed by the sardonic sway of “Handshake Drugs,” and from there the set built like a storm with no interest in rushing. Jeff Tweedy’s voice remains one of alt-rock’s most expressive instruments: warm, worn-in, and full of emotional contour that never overreaches but always lands where it needs to.
Moments like “Via Chicago,” with its lurching contrast of whispered verses and violent percussive jolts, felt like emotional sleight of hand. And then there’s Nels Cline—less a guitarist, more a sonic sculptor—who turned “Impossible Germany” into a trance-inducing spiral that had the crowd holding their collective breath.
From aching slow burns like “One Wing” to the layered optimism of “Jesus, Etc.,” Wilco’s setlist covered the expanse of their evolution without feeling retrospective. “Cruel Country” and “Quiet Amplifier” nodded to newer material, showing the band isn’t stuck in the glow of their early triumphs—they’re still pushing, still shifting. They closed with “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” a final burst of angular joy that reminded everyone that vulnerability can be loud, too.
Wilco doesn’t play shows—they cast spells. And on this particular night, the spell lingered long after the last note faded
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