When the Cedar announced the three night stand for Dan Wilson, I didn’t realize it was also Tapemark week. The nights were Wednesday-Thursday-Friday, so I purchased the last two and hoped for the best schedule-wise. Each night was to have a different theme: 1) Words & Music, 2) Dan Wilson and Friends and 3) Chef’s Surprise. I was most looking forward to the friends night, as you just never know who will show up. Turns out that was probably the best night of the three, in my opinion…

The reviews for the Wednesday night show said he handed out free illustrated set lists to every attendee:

We didn’t get those for either of the other two nights, but many of the same songs and stories were repeated on Thursday and Friday. He played a lot of songs from the new Love Without Fear album, including A Song Can Be About Anything, Disappearing, However Long, Your Brighter Days and the title track.

The friends on Thursday night included John Munson and Jacob Slichter from Semisonic, Caroline Smith and Dan’s brother Matt. While the crowd really wanted to hear Toolmaster of Brainerd when Matt was up there, we got to hear Closing Time and DND instead (plus one or two more). Slichter opened the night reading a passage from his book So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, which was cool.

I don’t have set lists from either night we attended, but you can get the general gist from the image above (click to enlarge). We also heard several of the Adele songs he wrote with her, along with Taylor Swift and Dixie Chicks songs the third night. Both nights featured the Laurels String Quartet, which added such a beautiful element. Chris Koza of Rogue Valley opened Friday.

Up next: Arctic Monkeys at Summerfest