Spoon at Sonar 4/11

Alternate title: I only get my rocks off while I'm seeing Spoon

So MBG, V, SH, and I made the long trek to Baltimore to see Spoon. We had pretty good Korean beforehand, because Spoon wasn't scheduled to go on until 11:15. Which is ridiculous. Anyway, I forced MBG to listen to classical music while I attempted to relax and hope that I would be fine at the concert after being exhausted. I was, and we got there after White Rabbit, but right as The Walkmen were starting. We all struggled to come up with the most appropriate way to describe them: Tucker Carlson with Bob Dylan's voice fronting the Strokes but sucking was my personal choice. They really weren't good. And the sound sucked, and we started to badmouth Sonar about it. The main issue with Sonar is that it isn't nearly as good as the 9:30, as it's on one level, with big pillars and poor ventilation (so frakkin' hot), so they have to set up large video screens so that half the audience can see the stage. It's pretty ridiculous. Not nearly as awesome as where we saw The Pipettes, the bar area to the right of the entrance. Anyway, we originally were not happy with the venue, and I was actually hoping that The Walkmen would cut their set short so that I could just relax and not have people around for a while. They really weren't bad, it's just that they were aggressively mediocre and the frontman's voice was crap. Sort of like my singing, for those who have heard it. After they finished, the venue started to play awesome early 60s songs, like Needle in a Haystack by the Velvelettes, Keep Your Hands off My Baby by Little Eva, and the like, which is guaranteed to get me in a good mood. Then Spoon came out at 11:05, ten minutes early. Also making me happy. But I had no idea what was about to come.

Back in 2003, the last time I saw Spoon live, I had been hoping to see them play Stay, Don't Go ever since I first heard it (in fact, I wasn't particularly impressed with Kill the Moonlight when I first heard it, except for that song, but by the third listen I had changed my mind), and here's what I had to say about that show way back then: "Spoon setlist: All the Pretty Girls Go to the City, Small Stakes, Metal School, Lines in the Suit, Utilitarian, The Minor Tough, Take the Fifth, Something to Look Forward To, Paper Tiger, Someone Something (with everyone doing the handclaps), Everything Hits at Once, Back to the Life, Chips and Dip, The Way We Get By, Me and the Bean, Car Radio, Take a Walk, Vittorio E., and then the encore of Fitted Shirt, Anything You Want, No You're Not, and Jonathon Fisk. Sometime in there, Britt said it was the best show they'd done this tour. And it was a damn good show. Nothing from Telephono, and only one thing from their EPs (the great Chips and Dip), but it was reasonably well spread out between their three most recent albums. I was enjoying the sitting for the show, and it was well played." So I've seen them play a lot of stuff from their two earliest albums, and I certainly don't need to see them play those again, but man, Series of Sneaks is a great album. Anyway, back to Friday night's show.

They came out and started right in on Chicago at Night, not the way I would have started the show, although it was just a warmup for what was to be one of the best pure rock shows I've seen in a long time. Just totally on, no blather between songs, songs were played with horns even when they didn't originally have them to add to the sound, and they even played Stay, Don't Go, although it was sadly lacking in beatboxing. I didn't recognize the Paul Simon cover, although I knew it was a cover (listed as such in my setlist on my phone), and they played Nefarious, from Telephono. The end of their main set... well, basically after Back to the Night was totally awesome, but bringing out the horns for Cherry Bomb, Valentine, and Underdog was just perfect. I knew they had to play Underdog in the main set, because it was pretty clear that many people were just waiting for that (and I'm not saying at all that I wasn't one of them), so the last song was pretty expected by me. The first encore had no horns, but I did hear someone scream out Anything You Want about five seconds before they started to play, so clearly one person was happy. SH and V headed to the back after the first encore, and I think MBG was about to join them before I noticed the lights hadn't come on, the music hadn't started up again, I wanted to see if they had anything else up their sleeves, and Britt hadn't even thanked us for being there. They came out again, pretty quickly this time, and brought the horn section. I said to MBG that they didn't have any more songs with horn parts in them. Then they made me insanely happy by starting in on the riff to Rocks Off. I think I had known they cover it, but it wasn't near the front of my mind. The first track (and probably best-known song, although that may be Tumbling Dice) from Exile on Main Street had me even more excited than the previous songs, it was a pretty damn good way to end it, and I was completely blown away. Interestingly, they've also done The Smiths' Panic, which probably would have made me about as happy.

Full setlist (90 minutes including the encore breaks):
Chicago at Night
Rhthm & Soul
Stay, Don't Go
Jonathan Fisk
The Delicate Place
Nefarious
The Ghost of You Lingers
Peace Like a River (Paul Simon)
Don't You Evah
Don't Make Me a Target
Someone Something
Back to the Night
I Summon You
I Turn My Camera On
Finer Feelings
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
The Underdog
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Anything You Want
The Beast & Dragon, Adored
Small Stakes
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Rocks Off (Rolling Stones)

I sang along to every song, bounced, and just was very happy throughout. According to their setlist seen here, they just whipped out whatever from the long list on the right for the encores. So, short of Lafitte Don't Fail Me Now, they did a great job with the encores. These are also the only pics I can find of the show.

Here's a video of You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb, and I definitely agree that the show was loud as hell. And, thanks to the awesomeness that is the internets, I'm downloading an audio recording of this show. You know you want it. Stupid Comcast and their blocking of bittorrent traffic is making this go ridiculously slow.