One thing you can almost always count on with shows at Old National Centre is precision. Bands hit the stage when they’re supposed to, the sound is typically good, and you can bank on getting home at a decent hour.
Austin’s Spoon also rely on precision. The band’s intricate, indie rock compositions have an artfulness not found in a lot of today’s music. But Spoon also knows how to cut loose and bring the noise. Britt Daniel and his cohorts have been at it for nearly 20 years now, and if Friday’s show was any indication, they’re still at the top of their game.
After a tight opening set by the Walkmen’s frontman, Hamilton Leithauser, Spoon sauntered on stage and delivered a blistering one-hour and forty-five minute set that mixed greats tracks from the past with a healthy dose of songs from newest release, They Want My Soul.
Spoon’s best records have always steadily wormed their way into your brain. Songs that, at first, felt incomplete — The Ghost of You Lingers, for example — over time become compulsively listenable gems. After 2010′s Transference, which didn’t work its way in like previous albums such as the incredible Gimme Fiction, Kill the Moonlight, and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, I was worried Spoon had lost some mojo. Maybe Daniel’s foray into side project The Divine Fits re-energized him, because Soul has the same flair as those albums. Tracks like Outlier and set opener Knock Knock Knock have irresistible grooves and bold hooks.
The set list Friday night was extremely well-balanced as the band made time for a healthy dose of classic Spoon songs. Don’t Make Me a Target, The Beast and Dragon, Adored, I Turn My Camera On, Jonathan Fisk, Black Like Me — the band certainly knows what fans want to hear. Die-hards may have been disappointed to get just one song — Anything You Want — from 2001′s Girls Can Tell, but when your catalog is so deep, someone’s favorites will get left behind.
The enthusiastic crowd also helped, singing along, and keeping the energy moving to support a second encore. (Whether that was planned or not is unclear. The lights came up, then went back down.)
One of the most satisfying shows I’ve seen this year. Were you there?
Set List:
Knock Knock Knock
Rent I Pay
Don’t You Evah
Rhythm & Soul
The Ghost of You Lingers
Do You
Don’t Make Me a Target
Small Stakes
Who Makes Your Money
The Beast and Dragon, Adored
Anything You Want
They Want My Soul
The Way We Get By
I Summon You
Rainy Taxi
I Turn My Camera On
Inside Out
Got Nuffin
Black Like Me
Encore 1:
Outlier
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
Encore 2:
Utilitarian
The Underdog
Jonathon Fisk