Britt Daniel
First of all, let's just start off by saying that this had all the makings of a magical night. It was the legendary club First Avenue's 40th birthday, which among other things meant free cake, and Spoon was in town for the second of two sold out shows. Last but not least, the fabulous Deerhunter were opening the show for Spoon, so it was a night for the record books.
Little know Londoners Micachu and the Shapes opened the show. Guitar, Mini-Guitar, Synthesizer, and Drums filled the stage. Vocals were impossible to make out, but were smartly used more as an instrument. Pitchfork describes their recorded sound as a "dissonant cluster," and live this is raised to a whole new level. With the synthesizer pounding through the crowd with the force of a bass, Micachu's sounds were hit and miss. The stand out songs were when a toy guitar was used instead of a real one, is this possibly a good sign? Anyways, the British trio weren't the reason I came, and it was enjoyable enough.
Next off, critic darlings indie act Deerhunter brought its dueling guitar sounds to the stage. The quartet beautifully played favorites such as "Nothing Ever Happened" from the amazingly well-received 2008 album Microcastle. Bradford Cox is an interesting character, interacting the crowd well and praising First Avenue and the city of Minneapolis. Deerhunter's classic blend of bass, two guitars, and drums worked perfectly, and I would see them again as a headliner.
As Spoon took the stage, First Avenue took on a new, more celebratory atmosphere. Opening with fan favorites such as "I Turn My Camera On," "Jonathon Fisk," and "The Way We Get By," Spoon had the audience hooked from the get-go. Brit Daniel was more talkative than the previous time I had seen Spoon, and the experience was all around more enjoyable.
New material from 2010's Transference fit in perfectly with older cuts, although they played only five songs from the album, leaving out two of my personal favorites, "Got Nuffin'" and "The Mystery Zone."
Spoon's catalogue has a lot of depth and it showed, the band played a 23 songs set including a standout cover of The Damned. Spoon continued pleasing the crowd and played two encores consisting of a total of five songs. Three of them came from Spoon's most commercially successful and most popular album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.
Spoon's victory lap continued on Saturday night, and the Austin based band probably even one over the few Deerhunter and Micachu fans near the front that were complaining about the amount of Spoon fans. First Avenue couldn't have picked a better band to celebrate their 40th birthday with, and Spoon proved that on Saturday night.
Set List:
I Saw The Light
I Turn My Camera On
Jonathon Fisk
Nobody Gets Me But You
The Way We Get By
The Ghost Of You Lingers
Stay Don't Go
Don't Make Me A Target
Love Song (The Damned Cover)
Who Makes Your Money
Back to the Life
My Mathematical Mind
Someone Something
Vittorio E
They Never Got You
I Summon You
Finner Feelings
Written In Reverse
Utilitarian
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
Don't You Evah
Trouble Comes Running
The Underdog
Nice write-up, man. I was there both nights and between the two, they played pretty much all of Transference with very little overlap. I've seen quite a few Spoon shows lately, having moved to Austin TX, and it's interesting to watch how their sound remains consistently tight, though they always throw a couple songs into expansion mode (as they did with "Mathematical Mind" on Saturday) and play with the structure of things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your sentiments re: Michachu/Deerhunter