Caught Live: Wilco @ The Roundhouse, London

As Wilco brought their recent UK tour to North London for the first of two back-to-back dates in the capital, Michael James Hall headed along to The Roundhouse, where he was pleasantly surprised by the band's latest live incarnation.

Feeling warmed by the Chicago rockers' slight return to the kind of shaggy, jagged awkwardness they excelled in throughout their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot/A Ghost Is Born heyday, and decidedly encouraged by the band's equal-parts meditative, sedative and regenerative new record The Whole Love, a Wilco crowd can count itself a happy crowd in the glow of potential for this brace of London shows. They've always given big in The UK, with even the most caustic spits of "I'd like to thank you all for nothing" jetting from crowd favourite 'Misunderstood' appearing to be aimed a little to the side rather than directly at the ever-loving crowds on these shores. All those epic, event-feel gigs at the likes of The Troxy and Royal Festival Hall, not to mention the band's overwhelming, overblown headline sets at recent Green Man and End of The Road festivals, were bound to leave us hoping for fireworks on Chalk Farm Road this evening - even if we haven't quite hit Hallowe'en yet.

It ain't that, though, that ultimately transpires; indeed, it's a markedly different creature that greets us tonight in this packed, niggly venue.

It's very much a case of Wilco: The Touring Band playing their 'touring band set' to their devout fans, just as they would anywhere else in the world, on any other night of the week. Far from having an immediate 'landmark' feel, this show presents an altogether different, altered and more edifying experience.

Jeff Tweedy is more tight-lipped than ever, pausing brash, bold run-throughs of seemingly whatever happens to cross the band members' minds (from 2009's 'Bull Black Nova' and this year's 'Born Alone' to classic YHF-opener 'I Am Trying to Break Your Heart' - there's no real discernible logic or quality control to what amounts to a tonne of wowing, weird, wonk-walking songs) only to apologise for a lacklustre show across town at Shepherd's Bush Empire aeons ago and mutter the (very) occasional "Thanks".

The songs positively flow out of the band - both Tweedy and Nels Cline, in particular, spend much of the gig looking like this is happening to them, as opposed to them controlling it. The oft-derided 'One Wing' gains borderline anthem status here, and huge love, while 'Jesus, Etc.' is promoted from its usual crowd-singalong role to become an artfully-performed heartcrusher.

Cline's guitar-playing is like thunder – this we already knew – and these days it's a force of nature he's intent on refining and refining. In much the same way, Tweedy has recently taken to paring back his sentiment to deliver his best work in years - manifesting here tonight in the shape of 'One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)' (without doubt one of the finest numbers he's ever written) and the new LP's title track.

So there's no sense of big-gig furore here, perhaps due to this being merely the first of a two-night stand (Saturday's show will offer a radically-altered set, along with a cameo appearance from recent support act Nick Lowe). Walking away, you get the feeling of 'just' having seen Wilco, of having witnessed one of the best bands in the world 'just' play a great show. Nineteen songs and an hour and three-quarters of glorious business as usual, really.

Photo courtesy of Steve Parkinson

The Whole Love is out now via the band's own dBpm imprint. Wilco are set to embark on another European tour next spring. At the time of writing, there have been no UK or Irish dates announced.