Wilco doesn’t really do overtly political songs, Jeff Tweedy told the crowd Saturday afternoon at the Wisconsin Union Theatre during a show organized by the Obama campaign. The band had done their best to find songs in their repertoire that would fit a political audience, the lead singer said, but came up short.
“There’s a hope gap,” he joked.
In these last few days before the election, that hardly matters. Politics seem to spark like a current through everything, grasping everyone with unadulterated enthusiasm and nervous electricity leading up to Tuesday. This was never more evident than in the mostly student crowd of about 900 that turned out Saturday, corralled by a bevy of clipboard-clutching campaign volunteers. The event also featured appearances by Sen. Russ Feingold and Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, and was aimed at getting young voters out to the polls early.