Before Thursday, Wilco’s headlining set seemed like a fairly perfunctory thing: Local heroes with tons of festival experience show up to play the songs that so many Chicagoans have heard so many times. It turned out to be a different thing entirely. With the surprise release of the free-download album Star Wars, a Wilco festival set was suddenly newsworthy. And, perhaps confident that they weren’t going to lose a Chicago crowd that’s stuck with them for so long, Wilco opened their set by playing the whole new album front-to-back, only omitting the instrumental intro “EKG.” And those new songs already sound like they belong in a Wilco set. They sounded warm and assured, like they’ve already played these songs a million times. And playing live, without the goofy production touches on the record, Star Wars sounded even better.

“So that’s Star Wars,” said Jeff Tweedy after they got finished with the album closer “Magnetized.” They followed it up with nearly an hour of the hits, and they sounded renewed when they did.