Spoon goes 'Ga Ga' at The Blue Note
Spoon stops in Columbia before heading to play 'Saturday Night Live.'
Published Oct. 5, 2007
Spoon's show Tuesday night at The Blue Note seemed destined for good things from its beginning.
First off, it didn't get canceled. After learning the band would play "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, the Austin, Texas quartet was forced to cancel several shows to rehearse and, of course, play "SNL."
Usually when an indie band is chopping shows and playing in Columbia on the same tour, poor old CoMO's date is good as gone. But for whatever reason, Britt Daniel and company decided mid-Missouri was worth their time during one of the most important weeks of their career. "SNL" can wait, or maybe Columbia can make them money.
Either way, they showed up, which is more than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (movie soundtrack work) or The Polyphonic Spree (they're just douchebags) can say.
The evening began with an appropriate 5-Ga attack of songs from this summer's, well, 5-Ga attack, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Without a single word, the band tore through the album's first five songs, leaving many thinking they were being treated to a rare, especially for Columbia, full and perfectly sequential album performance. Alas, the march of the Ga's ended after "Rhthm and Soul," but at least the crowd wasn't subjected to "Eddie's Ragga."
Seemingly energized from its five-song opening, the band began a long night of funny banter and classic new and old songs.
Appropriately odd and funny, frontman Daniel kept the crowd engaged all night. Seeming aloof but wholly approachable at the same time, he gazed around the stage and crowd while keeping a smirk firmly planted on his face.
While overdosing on big buildups followed by minute-and-a-half distortion breakdowns, the playing was thrilling, and the highlights were numerous and scattered throughout.
"My Mathematical Mind" built nearly unbearable tension before exploding into an emotional and rapturous breakdown.
Besides the encores, the crowd saved its most enthusiastic reactions for Gimme Fiction's "I Turn My Camera On" and "The Beast and Dragon, Adored."
"Black Like Me" and "The Underdog" highlighted the evening's Ga-offerings, the latter of which substituted some airy keyboards for its signature horns.
Daniel also, quite unshockingly, made sure it was an inglorious night for hecklers and idiots.
After repeated cries for Kill The Moonlight's "The Way We Get By," Daniel, in a moment of personal glory, responded, "'The Way We Get By?' I know that one. It was on 'The O.C.'"
This silenced the brain dead of the evening, at least until the encore, when the band finally ripped into its most famous song. After a long, long chorus of applause, the lights came on and everyone's favorite former small-time indie band was off for New York City. Columbia couldn't hold 'em, but we could keep 'em from canceling. It was a great possible last stand for Spoon in Columbia, gratuitous distorted solos and all.