Ashes of American Flags follows Wilco from Tulsa, Oklahoma (Cain's Ballroom) to Washington D.C. (9:30 Club) during its 2008 U.S. tour of ballrooms, clubs and concert halls, capturing the six-piece band, and three-man horn section, at such hallowed venues as Tipitina's in New Orleans and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This feature-length DVD is a concert film of extraordinary intimacy, with the HD cameras focused primarily on the stage and often inches away from singer songwriter Jeff Tweedy's microphone or drummer Glenn Kotche's cymbals. Ashes of American Flags also functions as an evocative travelogue, a document of the band's physical and emotional journey. Co-directors Brendan Canty, the former Fugazi drummer, and Christoph Green track Wilco's tour bus across the country, taking in both the wide-angle beauty and William Eggleston-like desolation of the highways and cities they pass through. At each stop, the filmmakers record candid moments at sound check, back stage and on the bus, where band members offer insights into their lives on the road and their remarkably intuitive communication as a group.

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Documentary, Music