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February 23, 2005

Spoon Plays “Secret Show” in Austin

Spoon played an unexpected show at Trophy’s in Austin last night. My friend Charles called me at about 6 p.m. to tell me he had heard about the show from a friend. We had no idea what kind of show it was going to be. A possible “Real World Austin” event? I thought it might be a straight run-through of “Gimme Fiction” songs in the exact order of the album since they had done a couple of preview shows for “Kill the Moonlight” about two years ago that were dominated by the KTM songs.

Charles said they were going to announce it on the radio or something, and that I better get there early or get shut out. So I got there at 7:15 having no idea how many people were going to be there. I expected to see some kind of line or at least a full club. But there was at most about 15 people. It turns out that the show wasn't going to start until 11. We were due for a long wait (I considered this good preparation for upcoming must-see SXSW showcases).

Finally, after an interminably long wait, the band came on.

I think they opened with “Beast and Dragon, Adored,” which has become my favorite track on the new album. Other GF songs they played included “My Mathematical Mind," “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine,” “Sister Jack,” and “The Delicate Place.” I think “The Delicate Place" is going to become one of the highlights of their live shows this year. It just builds and builds and builds until at the end everything just goes nuts. Lots of the crazy scattershot shards of guitar action Britt Daniel likes to do when he turns to Jim Eno and they start feeding off each other's energy.

The place never totally filled up, and it was great to see them in a small club like when they played Beerland right before the last album was due to come out.

The new (to me) keyboardist is great, too. He's very good with the maracas and adds some second guitar.

Other songs played (to the best of my recollection): “30 Gallon Tank,” “The Way We Get By,” “Anything You Want,” “Everything Hits At Once,” “Jonathan Fisk,” “Small Stakes,” “Paper Tiger," “Fitted Shirt,” “Lines in the Suit” and “Car Radio.”

Posted by timothompson at February 23, 2005 08:45 PM