Saw Andrew Bird and Wilco at Tan­gle­wood last night. They run a tight ship over there—Bird stepped onstage promptly at the adver­tised time of 6:30. He launched into a cou­ple of solo num­bers which began with his sig­na­ture pizzi­cato vio­lin, to which he added lay­ers (thanks to loop ped­als) of bow­ing, singing, and his prodi­gious whistling punc­tu­ated with some occa­sional glock­en­spiel. His band joined him on stage for the rest of the set, which was bril­liant, weird, and excit­ingly fresh. The crowd was fuller and an order of mag­ni­tude more ener­gized for the main act, Wilco, which was sur­pris­ing because Wilco’s show, while very good, was con­sid­er­ably less inspired. I had read that Wilco is famous for being styl­is­ti­cally diverse. Per­haps that is true of their record­ings, but on stage, they hap­pily embrace the strut­ting per­sonas of arena rock stars ham­mer­ing through their cat­a­log of hits.

Tan­gle­wood, by the way, is the most fab­u­lous and dis­tinc­tive venue for rock shows I’ve ever seen, for sev­eral rea­sons: It is a beau­ti­ful loca­tion. It has pretty remark­able acoustics (for a shed). The secu­rity is friendly and unobtrusive—no bag checks or pat-downs—and the few cops I spot­ted were chat­ting bois­ter­ously with con­cert­go­ers. You can BYOB (or any­thing else you want). Ven­dors sell only reasonably-priced beer and ice cream from local New Eng­land sup­pli­ers (Ben & Jerry’s, Magic Hat, Sam Adams). The grounds are metic­u­lously clean. Park­ing is easy. Restrooms are plen­ti­ful. And strangely enough for a rock show, there is not a sin­gle piece of adver­tis­ing anywhere—just you, nature, a stage, and music. Now if only you didn’t have to drive!