EDMONTON - To examine why Wilco is still considered such a legend in “alt-country” circles —“alt” being code for country music with no hats, no hits and no duets with Taylor Swift — it’s crucial to understand that this band hasn’t sounded like a country band of any kind for more than a decade.

Well played, Wilco! You may now have your cake and eat it, too.

Anyway, last night’s show at the Jubilee Auditorium was far more alternative than country — a free-ranging, multi-style, cliche-free, all-out blast featuring some of the finest ensemble playing you’ll ever experience from an American rock band. More than 1,900 enthusiastic fans turned up.

If you had to make a chart, put this band more in the area of Pat Metheny or the Beatles (both comparisons apply, believe it or not) than anywhere near, say, Dwight Yoakam.

Frontman Jeff Tweedy may be the focus and main instigator of this unusual Chicago combo, but the six musicians on stage behave as a single unit, another sterling example of the old “sum greater than the parts” phenomenon. You could tell these guys have played together — more importantly, listened to each other — for quite some time. Even the “new guy,” secret weapon guitarist Nels Cline, has been with Wilco for five years. Each one serves the whole, no one hogs the spotlight. They couldn’t get any tighter if they tried, even when they don’t look like they’re trying. From a whisper of subtle magic to a barrage of three-guitar noise to blow the roof off the joint, the dynamics were remarkable.

Just one of the alternative wrinkles heard last night: The band claimed its set list was determined by fan vote on its website, sometimes even pulling out some obscure song even if just one person voted for it. “I don’t think that’s any way to build a following,” Tweedy said. Maybe a cult following, though, eh?

And so, the night opened on a quiet note, with Sunken Treasure. The vocals were practically a whisper, the accompaniment minimal. Cline played these beautiful slide guitar licks, his guitar hooked up to some contraption that seemed to record a loop of what he played and spit it out backwards. Interesting.

All hell broke loose shortly thereafter. There followed an eclectic blend of material from Wilco’s varied career, very little of it in a country vein. The closest probably came in the encore for California Stars. You might also count a pair of tracks from Mermaid Avenue — the album of unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco — but given the wild arrangements, especially in Hoodoo Voodoo, it was a stretch. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart evolved into a frenzy of noise reminiscent of the big build-up in the Beatles’ A Day in the Life. You Are My Face featured the odd lyrics — “I remember my mother’s sister’s husband’s brother working in the goldmine full-time” — with Crosby Stills Nash and Young-style vocals. Well, three part, not four, but close enough.

You literally didn’t know what you were going to get next. The show got a bit noodley and draggy in places, but the lulls didn’t last. There was always a surprise right around the corner. And that’s the real magic of a band like Wilco —no “alt” label needed.

An enormous arsenal of shakey eggs, bells, blocks, whistles and all manner of percussive whatnot distinguished the opening band Califone, which was exactly “too weird” enough to set the stage for the main event.

Call it a “post-apocalyptic” pop band, as if dazed survivors picked up what was left from the remains of a music store and started reinventing music from square one.