Wilco put on the show of a lifetime when they played the first night of their three-show stop at The Wiltern Theatre here in Los Angeles. Jeff Tweedy and company set fire to the air, showing me and everyone else lucky enough to be in attendance, just how it's done.

Old school amps lined the stage as the guys played with limitless energy and perfect synchronization throughout every second of the show. The only misstep of the night, if you could even call it that, came when Tweedy, mimicking a hummingbird's wings, spun his mic by the cord and missed catching it on its way back down. He laughed at himself and the crowd cheered harder than they would have had he caught it.

Contagious smiles were highlighted under a spectacular light show that infused the audience with a natural high that went along swimmingly with the other high floating around the air that night.

Nels Cline danced and rocked across the stage, tangling himself in his guitar strap and cords as he shredded relentlessly, all the while Tweedy kept the crowd mesmerized with his ability to entertain and command without a trace of that oh-so-common lead singer overconfidence.

Cline battled it out with Pat Sansone in a guitar-off before the guys called it a night for the first time, hugging each other and smiling widely as they exited off stage.

Within a minute they had returned to their posts for the obligatory return-to-stage and shocked the crowd by digging into a (by my count) seven-song encore performance.

As the group left the stage for the second time, the crowd at The Wiltern began a steady and deafening assault of cheering and clapping that didn't start to diminish until Wilco came out for a third time.

The guys emerged from sidestage and performed an additional four songs, officially coming in at an eleven-song, double encore and somehow managed to make two hours and twenty minutes of straight rocking look easy.

Wilco absolutely owned the stage and I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but Tuesday and Thursday night ticket holders: You missed it.

Wilco straight put on a clinic of how to set the roof on fire - and it happened Monday night.

DETAILS:

Story by Aubrey Nicole.
Photography by Ryan Miceli.