Jeff Tweedy in Ventura

Jeff Tweedy’s concert at the Ventura Theater was heavy on songs from his latest album, Twilight Override, which was fine by me as I had spent time with it and the songs were familiar. When I listened to it again at home, however, I realized that the songs all sounded much better on the record than in person. His five-person backup band was fine, but they looked as scruffy as Jeff, albeit with a generation more of youth, and didn’t add much to the experience. My biggest takeaway was the fact that he could almost sell out the cavernous auditorium in Ventura–a city, he commented, that most bands just drove through–even though his music gets no airplay I’m aware of and is antithetical to the “pop” sound of today. Anyone going to the concert for memories of Wilco would have been disappointed, and it didn’t seem that anyone was. (March 21, 2026)