Photo by @jaymiey and @jaredherm via the Solid Sound Facebook page

Wilco and Billy Bragg brought material from their famed Mermaid Avenue albums to life during the first day of North Adams, MA’s Solid Sound Music & Arts Festival this past Friday. The bi-annual event traditionally provides curators Wilco an opportunity to play a special set during Solid Sound’s opening day, which have ranged from a cover-only show to full-album performances, live-band karaoke, acoustic selections and rarities.

Friday’s show marked the first time Bragg and Wilco had ever performed a full show devoted to the Mermaid Avenue records. The original Mermaid Avenue album was released in 1998 after Norah Guthrie, famed folk musician Woody Guthrie’s daughter and the director of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and archives at the time, asked Bragg to set some of her father’s unreleased lyrics to new music. Bragg recruited Wilco, who were still a young band at the time, and together they crafted several albums worth of music. The original Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998, and they dropped a second installment in the series in 2000 as well as The Complete Sessions compilation in 2012, which compiled the two records along with a third volume of material. Yet, they never toured on the project. In fact, Bragg has only shared the stage with the members of Wilco a handful of times, most notably in 1998, when they played individual sets during the traveling Guinness Fleadh festival and in 2023, when Bragg sat in with Wilco at the Moseley Folk & Arts Festival in Birmingham, England for the Mermaid Avenue classic “California Stars.”

Friday’s show seamlessly mixed material from the three Mermaid Avenue records, including the first live readings of the Vol. II numbers “My Flying Saucer” and “All You Fascists,” as well as the Vol. III cuts “When the Roses Bloom Again” and “The Jolly Banker.” While Wilco plays several tunes from the LPs regular, including “Hoodoo Voodoo,” “One by One” and the aforementioned “California Stars,” all of which they offered at Solid Sound with Bragg, they had only run through “Walt Whitman’s Niece” one known time, in 2000, and Jeff Tweedy had previously only played “Ingrid Bergman” during his solo shows. Some of the songs more associated with Bragg, like “She Came Along to Me,” also lived exclusively in his repertoire.  

While the reunion of Wilco and Bragg, who many speculate had butted heads during the sessions, was a marquee event in and of itself, the performers also had a few other surprises up their sleeves. Natalie Merchant, who performed on Mermaid Avenue, emerged during Friday’s show for “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key,” which Wilco had never played live, and “Birds and Ships,” which—according to Setlist.fm—neither Wilco nor Bragg had played live before, though Merchant had performed it on her own. At the end of the main set, Sally Timms and Jon Langford also took the stage to help the musicians debut “All You Fascists” and, during the night’s encore, Macie Stewart appeared on “The Unwelcome Guest” and Liam Kazar emerged for the first live performance of “The Jolly Banker.” Merchant later returned for “California Stars,” a song that has arrived near the end of countless Wilco concerts, and Woody’s granddaughter Sarah Lee Guthrie and other family member also appeared for a sing-along version of “This Land Is Your Land” to close the night. Of note, Jeff Tweedy shouted out estranged former Wilco member Jay Bennett, who contributed heavily to the sessions and passed away in 2009, during the concert while Norah Guthrie took the stage to express her gratitude and joy standing between Tweedy and Bragg.

The surprises continued during Wilco’s proper headlining show on Saturday. Wilco multi-instrumentalist Mikael Jorgensen opened the segment by bringing out jazz keyboardist and Fourplay founder Bob James to play his theme song from the classic TV show Taxi, “Angela.” A few songs into the set, Elizabeth Moen also emerged for the Being There track “Forget the Flowers” while Merchant returned for the Wilco (The Album) classic “You & I” and Macie Stewart played on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot highlight “Jesus, Ect.” At the very end of the show, Sylvan Esso helped Wilco close the night with their Krautrock jam “Spiders (Kidsmoke).” (Wilco also used the occasion to debut a pair of original songs, “Flawed Man” and “Losing Traction,” and they successfully broke the Guinness world record for hosting the largest simultaneous yo-yo event.)

However, the day’s biggest surprise took place before “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” when former Wilco member Leroy Bach reunited with the band for one of the final tunes he recorded with them “Handshake Drugs,” a selection off 2004’s A Ghost is Born. Bach was a member of Wilco from 1997-2004, appearing on one song off Mermaid Avenue Vol. II, before leaving the group on his own accord. He was replaced by guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone; Solid Sounds was the first time he had played with the group since his departure.

The full Wilco lineup also made a surprise appearance at Jeff Tweedy & Friends’ festival-closing set Sunday. Cline emerged first for a cover of Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” and, two songs later, the entire current iteration of the group joined Tweedy for John Denver’s anthem “Take Me Home, Country Road” and an event-closing take on Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” 

Wilco will perform appear at Irvina, TX’s The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory tomorrow as part of the Outlaw music Festival.