An influential band has found time in its busy schedule to kick off Harveys' Summer Outdoor Concert Series at Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena.

Wilco, a pioneer in fusing experimental rock with alt-country, will sandwich its Sunday, June 28, show at Tahoe between two important dates: The band was due to play “The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien” on June 24 and has scheduled the release of its new self-titled album for June 30.

The band played some songs off “Wilco (The Album”) last month before Bruce Springsteen took the stage at the eighth annual Bonnaroo Music Festival.

“If anybody boos us tonight, we have a built in excuse,” lead singer Jeff Tweedy joked, according to The Associated Press. “They're just yelling ‘Bruuuuuce.' ”

While Wilco won't feel the pressure of preceding “the Boss” onstage, the band is kicking off a Tahoe tradition in the form of the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys.

The playbill also includes Blues at the Lake at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 11, REO and Styxat 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 17, Kenny Chesney at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 29 (which already has sold out), Earth Wind & Fire with Chicago on Saturday, Aug. 1, Bob Dylan and his band with Willie Nelson and familyat 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, and Toby Keith at 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30. Chickenfoot, featuring Van Halen alumni Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, along with guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, wraps up summer at the arena Sept. 5.

Wilco began in Chicago, growing out of the ashes of pioneering alt-country rockers Uncle Tupelo, whose “No Depression” (1990) stands as a monument in the genre. Singer Jay Farrar departed to form Son Volt (which was recently touring Northern California as well), and the remaining members continued on as Wilco.

Wilco, which took its name from CB radio procedure, recorded “A.M.” in 1994 and made its live debut (as Black Shampoo) that Nov. 17 at Cicero's Basement Bar in St. Louis, according to Wikipedia.

The relationship between musician and listener inspired the second album, which the band named “Being There” after a Peter Sellers film.

“The whole ‘No Depression' thing was funny to us because people seemed to forget that Jeff was a bigger punk-rock fan than a country fan. It led to things like us all switching instruments on “Misunderstood,” where I'm playing guitar,” multi-instrumentalist Ken Coomer said, according to the online encyclopedia.

Wilco began recording its next album in November 1997 in Willie Nelson's Texas studio and released “Summerteeth” in March 1999. In between, Wilco became involved with another project that would prove an important artistic statement for the band.

Woody Guthrie's daughter, Nora, had contacted British folksinger Billy Bragg about recording songs that her father had written but could not record because his motor skills were deteriorating with his Huntington's disease. Wilco and Bragg began what would become “Mermaid Avenue” in December 1997. While tempers flared between the band and the singer, according to Wikipedia, but the album went on to sell 277,000 copies and was a Grammy nominee for Best Contemporary Folk Album. “Mermaid Avenue Vol. II” followed in 2000.
The merger of Time Warner with America Online in 2001 set the stage for Wilco's defining album. The merger resulted in the firing of more than 600 Warner Music Group employees and more pressure on the label to sell records. Reprise Records rejected Wilco's “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” which went on to become a popular bootleg download and later much more.

“Wilco was asked to change the album, clean it up, make it more accessible. The band declined,” Chris Turner wrote in his pop-culture treatise “Planet Simpsons.”

“In short order, Wilco was cut loose — and then signed, soon after, with Nonesuch Records, another arm of AOL Time Warner. A somewhat marginal, uncompromising rock & roll band had stared down the largest media conglomerate on the planet, had found itself hard against its enormous grinding gears. Had held its ground and lived to tell the tale. And even to triumph: ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' was released in the spring of 2002 to widespread critical worship and the band's usual solid sales.”

Those other Lake Tahoe Action wannabes over at SPIN magazine named “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” No. 77 on its list of the 100 greatest albums in its 20th-anniversary special.

Wilco continued in its experimental vein with “A Ghost Is Born” (2004) and “Sky Blue Sky” (2007), and released “Kicking Television: Live in Chicago” in 2005.

More recently, Wilco and Seattle band Fleet Foxes collaborated on a cover Bob Dylan's “I Shall Be Released,” giving registered voters a free download of their Aug. 23 performance of the song in Bend, Ore. The band evoked that collaboration, as well as “Mermaid Avenue,” in February, when Wilco distributed a cover of Woody Guthrie's song “The Jolly Banker” as a free download.

“The Jolly Banker” features a guest appearance by singer-songwriter Fiest, who also will make a guest appearance on Wilco's new album, on the song “You and I.”

The band, with only Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remaining from the original lineup, has found itself in the news recently for much gloomier reasons than its Conan O'Brien appearance and new album: Former Wilco guitarist Jay Bennett died May 24. After an autopsy, the Champaign County (Ill.) coroner's office ruled Bennett's death by an overdose of painkiller an accident, according to The Associated Press.

Bennett worked as a sound engineer and played multiple instruments for the band from the “A.M.” days in 1994 through 2001. He sued Tweedy in early May over royalties.
After learning of the death, Tweedy said Bennett made significant contributions to Wilco and said he would be remembered “as a truly unique and gifted human being,” The AP reported.