On Wednesday night, Wilco finished up an interesting five-night run at the Riviera Theater in Chicago. To start their winter tour, they spent five nights at the Riviera Theater, kind of as a warm-up for the rest of the tour — and kind of … something else.

From the time this tour was announced, it was clear that this run would be special. There was one goal — the band promised to go through the entire Wilco catalog in five nights, with songs from the Mermaid Avenue records, B-sides and even some unreleased stuff thrown in.

These days, I can’t follow my musical impulses like I used to. When I was in school, it never seemed like a big deal to ditch classes for a few days to go catch Dead shows; it likewise wasn’t a problem to hop in the car and drive hundreds of miles to see a band in special circumstances like this. The Wife and I still do those things, but they require a lot more planning — scheduling vacation days is a little harder to manage than not worrying about missing econ classes.

So I didn’t go to Chicago. But I have the next best thing. As I had hoped, a few enterprising tapers set up shop in the Riviera, and the uploaded shows are starting to show up on etree. I pulled the first night’s show — Feb. 15 — Thursday morning and spent much of the day listening to that 31-song monster. The second night is downloading as I write, and it’ll be ready for me in the morning.

As cool as it would have been to be there, getting copies of all five nights (please?) would be pretty awesome in its own right. To have a collection of pretty much everything Wilco’s ever played? Crisp audience recordings? Played by the best version of America’s best band? What’s not to like about this again?

I won’t be at the show in Cleveland tonight, either — but if the Riviera shows continue popping up, I won’t feel as sorry for missing it.