Wilco w/ Nick Lowe

Since their 1995 studio debut, A.M., Wilco has grown from one of the defining alt-country bands into one of the most influential bands of their generation, period. With 1999's Summerteeth, singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy indulged his studio-pop fascination, and by 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and 2004's A Ghost Is Born, he had transformed the band into avant-garde innovators of American music. Subsequent releases have juggled those experimental tendencies with rock traditionalism, and although 2009's Wilco (The Album) was too cheeky and self-amused for its own good, the band's latest, The Whole Love, is a winning summation of the band's strengths. It's as purely fun as any record the band has released since the '90s.