1. They start off mellow, measured and, frankly, boring-as-hell. Half the crowd is asleep by the third song. Please oh please, Britt! Break out some of them catchy tunes. You know, like that “Camera” song. Yeah, that one! Okay, that’s more like it. Hips are moving. People are grooving. Now the pace is set for the rest of the night.
2. “The Ghost of You Lingers” is meant to be heard live. The bassist and guitarists are banging, banging, banging on the keyboards. Britt’s tremulous voice lingers and echoes as if he were singing into a vast subterranean cavern. It’s breathtaking enough to bring even the most jaded indie-rock kid to his knees.
3. Somebody! Pass Britt Daniel’s mother a joint. She’s in the crowd and she’s fiending for that sticky-icky real bad.
4. Goddamn those bass lines are catchy. It’s almost sexual how catchy they are. Sure, their live performance is played almost verbatim from the album. Some improvisation could do them much good. But goddamn, with bass lines as catchy as those in “Don’t You Evah” or “They Never Got You,” who cares?
5. The whole show is pretty straight forward. No fancy lights, no sound distorting knick-knacks, no Elvis Costello dance moves- just four straight shooting cowboys replacing pistols for musical machines. It makes for a relatively uneventful night unless you’re a die-hard Spoon fan, which of course, most people here are. They’re selling point is their relentless set list, packed full of all their catchiest tunes (including that wonderful little ditty “It’s My Japanese Cigarette Case”). They do an encore followed by a second encore going as far back as A Series of Sneaks to the most recent album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. And just think. Only a few years ago these guys were playing at the Khyber. Yeah, they can’t believe it either.
[Photos and text by EVA LIAO]
SLIDESHOW: Click To Enlarge
INQUIRER: Ga, Ga, Ga, Blah, Blah, Blah