The most affecting moments of a music festival are felt when any perceived distance between audience and performers vanishes.

On night one of last weekend’s Solid Sound Festival, the fifth incarnation of Wilco’s biennial music festival in the Berkshires, the band packed the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) with families, friends, and fans to catch the band perform their storied double album, Being There, in full. On the album’s penultimate song “The Lonely 1”, frontman Jeff Tweedy alternates perspectives from meeting a superfan in the first verse to becoming the fan in the second:

“When you perform, it’s so intense
When the critics pan, I write in your defense
I understand I’m just a fan
I’m just a fan”

“The Lonely 1” communicates the understated, but no less sincere reality of Wilco’s dedication to fostering a radical empathy with their fans over the years – they are fans themselves, first and foremost. Hence, thoughtfulness and consideration permeated every aspect of Solid Sound, not just within the grounds of the contemporary art museum, but through the community of North Adams, MA, too.

(L-R) Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and John Stirratt of Wilco on night two at Solid Sound.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/ National Sawdust

Being There was chosen by fans, who voted online for the album they wanted Wilco to play in full in the months prior to Solid Sound. Following the performance, the band returned to the stage and played their post-9/11 avant-Americana classic, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, straight through for the encore.  

Elsewhere, the band’s dedication to their fans informed almost every strategic decision of festival planning and promotion. The festival’s smartphone app, a tool typically introduced by large festivals as a means of tracking an audience’s movements for the day and promoting the sponsors on site, was instead implemented as a means of notifying attendees about special, intimate pop-up performances in the museum’s galleries.

Nick Offerman performs an intimate set to an adoring crowd at MassMoCA’s “In the Abstract” gallery.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/ National Sawdust

Among those pop-ups, Jeff Tweedy performed solo, acoustic set featuring cuts from his new solo acoustic release, Together At Last. Alpha-male funnyman Nick Offerman performed a collection of comedic originals, hobo traditionals, and Tom Waits covers at the “In the Abstract” gallery as the audience delicately sat cross-legged on the floor, careful not to touch the art. Wilco offered a play date meet-and-greet pop-up, wherein parents could only attend with a child in tow. Tweedy sat in on an experimental set by Nels Cline, Wilco’s lead guitarist, while Cline and his partner, Yuka Honda, played their third-ever live show as CUP in the museum’s brand new Building 6 (full name, B6: The Robert W. Wilson Building), framed by a window looking out over the arrestingly verdant vista of the Berkshire Mountains.

Nels Cline and Yuka Honda played their third show as CUP in MassMoCA’s Building 6.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/ National Sawdust

Solid Sound’s lineup, meanwhile, reflected a curatorial, fan-friendly approach to programming, including acts modeled off the vast American music traditions that Wilco pulls from, alongside their more avant-garde interests and side projects.

A narrative emerged around the elder statesmen who performed, demonstrating Wilco’s knowledge of the deep well dub their sonic forefathers — from former J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf’s amped-up rockabilly afternoon set and New York jam-punks Television to the surviving sisters of cult outsider band the Shaggs, reunited to play their first set in more than 15 years—and showcasing how deep Wilco’s fandom actually cut.

Dave and Phil Alvin, brothers who played in the seminal California roots-punk band the Blasters, shared the stage in the continuation of a bond reaffirmed in 2012 after decades of tense separation. Phil joined Dave’s band, the Guilty Ones, for a blisteringly groovy set of covers that tied their legacy into past and present, including “Southern Flood” by their hero, Big Bill Broonzy, “4th of July” by fellow Los Angeles cow-punks X, and classic Blasters numbers like “Border Radio,” “Marie, Marie,” and “So Long Baby Goodbye.”

Tom Verlaine of Television at Solid Sound.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/National Sawdust

These groups all played pop-ups inside MASS MoCA, too, allowing fans to get closer to their idols than such festivals traditionally allow. In exploring the former textile and electrical components factory, attendees also received complete access to the museum’s vast collection of contemporary art. One young woman remarked on how special it was to be stand with rocker Kurt Vile as they both experienced artist James Turrell’s intimate light installations together, only to see him perform on the main stage later that evening.

Contrasted with a contemporary art museum like DIA Beacon, MASS MoCA feels tailored to bring young kids into the conversation — exhibitions like artist Nick Cave’s “Until” are designed to be walked through and experienced, encouraging immersion, while fostering dialogue about the questions of black identity embedded in the subtext of Cave’s work. The museum’s Kidspace gallery, meanwhile, focuses on teaching children to both create and display their work. One of MASS MoCA’s past artists in residence, Huck Elling, set up her Airstream trailer studio on the grounds just beyond Wilco’s merch tent, leaving her ornately stitched monster masks out on the lawn for kids to play with and teaching curious families about her creative process.

Fostering this inclusive environment, wherein the programming can both appeal to children and adults all at once, has established a level of communal trust between Wilco and attendees that far surpasses any subconscious brand loyalty or marketed appeal.

Both kids and kids at heart dug former MASS MoCA artist-in-residence Huck Elling’s wearable monster masks and interactive play area.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/National Sawdust

Liberated from any perceived stuffiness associated with musical curation, Wilco’s decision to include the aforementioned legacy performers alongside younger acts that fit their sound presented different generations in dialogue with each other. In Kurt Vile’s hazy, noodling slow grooves, the spirit of Neil Young manifested through cerebral slacker prose. The simultaneously delicate and powerful Big Thief painted scenes of open spaces with a lyrical clarity and immediacy despite living in Brooklyn. Like Wilco, they expertly understand the dichotomy between city life and country living is to be observed, respected, and considered in their work.

Kevin Morby’s love of Lou Reed and Bob Dylan came through in both lyrical delivery and word choice, through a set featuring songs off his new record, City Music, like “1234,” which recalls a Ramones-inspired rave-up, among older songs like set-closer “Ballad of Arlo Jones”, perhaps a wink or nod to folk hero Arlo Guthrie. Arlo’s a popular name around those parts: The son of Woody Guthrie settled down a few towns over in Great Barrington, MA in ’65, where he met a woman named Alice who inspired his wildly popular debut LP, Alice’s Restaurant, and was living at he Trinity Church. The church is now called the Guthrie Center.

The curatorial approach to Solid Sound provides the members of Wilco with an opportunity to challenge themselves, as well, living out their seemingly more left-field impulses and side projects in front of audiences larger than such projects normally might command. Beyond the aforementioned experimental duo of Nels Cline and Yuka Honda, Cline participated in several other pop-ups and one-offs throughout the weekend. Closing out the courtyard stage on the final night, his Nels Cline Four ensemble with Julian Lage on guitar, Scott Colley on bass, and Tom Rainey on drums presented an hour of free jazz to a packed crowd, nodding to Cline’s ceaseless, mercurial career as a working jazz guitarist, while educating casual fans that, coupled with his other performances of the weekend, Cline wears many genre hats (among them: noise, punk, Americana, blues, jazz, and avant-garde.)

Quindar at Solid Sound.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/National Sawdust

Wilco pianist Mikael Jorgensen, who started with the band by providing sound manipulations on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tour, played at the indoor Hunter Center with James Merle Thomas as Quindar. Pulling from NASA’s Audio and Film Archive, the group’s audiovisual performance tickled the brainstem with day-glo visuals and mellow, astral, psychedelic electronica.

Meanwhile, the band’s drummer, Glenn Kotche, expanded his Brazilian-leaning jazz/post-rock duo On Fillmore into a sextet featuring former Kronos Quartet cellist and National Sawdust regular Jeffrey Zeigler on electric cello alongside bassist Darin Gray – who would play with Jeff Tweedy and his son Spencer in their band, Tweedy, later that night.

Wilco bassist John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, the band’s multi instrumentalist, presented their side project, the Autumn Defense, at the top of its game. Originally functioning as something of an incubator for Wilco melodies and harmonies (they practically lived at Le Poisson Rouge for years,) the Autumn Defense has evolved from an adult-contemporary, easy-listening side project into a muscular draw on its own. Closing with their cover of Love’s classic “A House Is Not a Motel” perfectly telegraphed the weekend sentiment that, though we were all travelers passing through North Adams, the weekend was not a celebration of transience so much as a planting of roots.

The family Tweedy carried this home with a closing slot on Sunday that featured a Tweedy set, a Jeff Tweedy solo set, and a set of covers involving all members of Wilco that included songs by the Staples Singers, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Doug Sahm, and Dylan with the Band. On the closing song, “I Shall Be Released,” youngest Tweedy Sammy made his live debut.

“I went to see Jonathan Richman and he talked about going to a truck stop somewhere and seeing a sign in the truck stop that said ‘everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so be kind always,’” Jeff Tweedy told the crowd before bringing out friends for the Pops Staples cover, “Friendship.”

“And I did a little research… apparently Plato said that first, and people keep saying it over time, and for a long time that phrase has been coming up, and we need to keep telling each other that, because we still haven’t gotten good at it. There’s a lot of things in this world that are really upsetting to me right now, but it’s also made me try to be kinder than I’ve ever been in my life, and if that can translate into that, I know we’re going to be better than ever soon.”

Jeff Tweedy at Solid Sound.
Photograph: Justin Joffe/National Sawdust

As the music industry has financially bolstered itself in the wake of ubiquitous music piracy over the last decade or so, live performances and festivals have fast become a cash cow. Bands used to tour to promote an album; now, they make an album to tour. The idea of a communal gathering has been branded and monetized, while the term “experiential” more often than not refers to a successful interaction an attendee might have with a branding or sponsorship presence at any given festival.

MASS MoCA has proven an ideal environment for Wilco to curb this trend and create a small utopia every other year, because they share the same belief that thinking as a fan first reaps a holistic engagement and interaction all its own. MASS MoCA’s opening in 2009 revitalized North Adams, a community hit hard by closures of textile and electric industries that used to function as its economic stalwarts. Similar festivals have since followed suit, using old industrial spaces, including Hudson’s Basilica Soundscape and Houston’s Day for Night, creating site-specific dialogues between their spaces and their programming, simultaneously bolstering their respective areas’ creative infrastructures and giving art a truly unique home in which to live.

Though the intimacies of Wilco’s relationship to North Adams didn’t initially reveal themselves, learning of Wilco’s John Stirratt’s intention to help revitalize the old Redwood Motel on Route 2 and seeing the old Mohawk Theater on Main Street thank Wilco on its marquee provide reminders that changing industries in small towns across America can make room for arts infrastructure to flourish: a potentially symbiotic benefit to both the town and the creative community.

By encouraging their fans to head for the hills every other year, Wilco aren’t just feeding their own egos or opening heads up to new music, but fostering a community that cares about sustainability, discovery, and growth. If that’s not a lesson for the whole family, we don’t know what is.

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Justin Joffe writes about music, art, technology, and other cultural leavings, for the Observer, Spin, No Depression, Noisey, and other publications.