The billing “An Evening with Wilco” tells you what kind of night the band has in mind. No opener. Two full sets with an intermission. It is a format that places the full weight of the evening on the band, and Wilco, after more than thirty years and thirteen studio albums, has no trouble holding it.
About Wilco
Jeff Tweedy formed the band in Chicago in 1994 from the remains of Uncle Tupelo, carrying the alt-country DNA of that group into something more restless and harder to categorize. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) — rejected by their label, streamed online for free, then released to near-universal acclaim — made the case for Wilco as one of American rock’s essential working bands. The documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart captured the record’s troubled production; the album did the rest of the arguing.
The current six-piece lineup has held together with unusual stability: Tweedy alongside bassist John Stirratt, drummer Glenn Kotche, guitarist Nels Cline, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen. Their most recent album, Cousin (2023), was produced by Welsh musician Cate Le Bon — the first outside producer the band had worked with in over a decade — and marked a deliberate turn from the country-rock warmth of Cruel Country (2022) toward angular post-punk textures. The Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP followed in 2024. This summer run arrives after a solo “Twilight Override” tour Tweedy completed this spring; the Lafayette date falls ten days before Solid Sound, the band’s own festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, which sold out in the fastest time in its nine-year history.
The Venue
Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards is a fifth-generation working farm in Lafayette, NY, established in 1911 and recognized four times by USA Today as a top orchard in the nation. The Apple Hill Campus hosts an outdoor summer concert series that has developed into one of Central New York’s more substantive open-air stages — this year’s calendar also includes CAKE, Lake Street Dive, and the Indigo Girls. The Beak & Skiff doors open at 5:00 PM on June 16; the show begins at 7:00 PM.
Tickets
Tickets are on sale now through Tixr, the exclusive ticketing platform for the Beak & Skiff Summer Concert Series. No price range has been published. The venue advises purchasing only through Tixr to avoid reseller markups and fraudulent listings.