So, it was a big music week for me. I travelled to Wilco's Solid Sound Festival at Mass Moca in North Adams Maas. All told, it was an amazing couple of days of music, some great adventure and more than a little physical exhaustion.

I drove there from North Carolina, which took me 12 hours. I met two friends there and we all stayed in a small room at a Bed and Breakfast. They both snore, I slept on a cot....I'm exhausted.

We saw a bunch of bands but the standouts for me were Yo La Tengo. Ira Kaplan seemed to wrench every last drop of sound out of his guitar. It was my first YLT experience and I am now a fan. Wonderful live energy. They started the set off with several songs that were extremely delicate and subtle and then ended there set with melodic noise that was simultaneously random and cohesive. Very expertly done.

Another standout was Foxygen a band that mixes bygone genre's in a way that eventually makes their own sound. I am increasingly impressed by this bands recordings and their live performance, though I didn't see it all, was impressive too.

Wilco performed two nights. Friday night they performed a night of audience selected cover songs, starting off with "Thin Lizzy's" The Boys Are Back in Town which was a perfect opener. The standout covers were Who Loves the Sun originally by the Velvet Underground, And Your Bird Can Sing by the Beatles and the best cover, by FAR was Marquee Moon by Television. HOLY SHIT that was good. Here is a fan video of it. Wilco's night of covers was really fun, especially given that I've seen them so many times and frankly, I'm not sure how many more times I can hear them play Via Chicago, no matter how explosive the drums/lights are. But cover night was a real treat for us long-time fans. It may have been odd for the uninitiated though.

White Denim was really good too and were the first band we saw.

The venue itself is absolutely amazing. By far the best venue I've been to for a festival. In fact, calling this a festival does it a disservice. Its more like a big party that Wilco throws. There are so few people there that you see everyone all weekend and feel like you are all "in on" something together. The staff is extremely friendly and the food/beer is reasonably priced. The artwork throughout the place makes for a very surreal experience. It's pretty magical.

The highlight of the entire experience was Saturday night. My friend managed to get us tickets to have "dinner with Wilco." The dinner happened after they finished their set at midnight. We were escorted up a stairwell and walked in to a large room that seemed like an airplane hanger, all the more so because the Chinese artist Xu Bing's piece "Phoenix" was hanging above us:

There were 100 people in attendance and we were all sat for a gourmet meal. We got to know the people around us and as you can imagine, they were all big Wilco/music fans. Eventually, the band came in and came around and gave high-fives to the attendees. I was able to speak with Jeff Tweedy and thank him for the weekend and let him know how much I enjoyed the Television cover. I had a nice long talk with Glenn Kotche, who I think is one of the best drummers/percussionists out there, about having a two and a half year old and how he can't really take his son with him on tour with 7 dudes on a bus. I mentioned that my wife "J", couldn't make it and he signed a poster to her that read, "J, wish you were here -Glenn.

It was a great night.

So, lot's of music this weekend. But I'm too tired to write more right now. I'm beat.

FUN TIMES THOUGH!!!! Check out Foxygen if you've not already.