Got there early, and so saw most of the support sets by Little Red (x 2) and the Smallgoods - both jangly sixties revivalists, the former bringing some solid rock n roll voices, sweet harmonies and a sense of humour, the latter adding some proggy soundscapes (and a great cover of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes") to their mix.
Then, Spoon, taking the stage to loud acclamation, and kickin' off with "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" and then a spectacular "Small Stakes", after which basically an hour and a half of nearly every Spoon song that I could've hoped to hear - it was very buzzy and a good vibe all round (Britt Daniel said at one point "this is our crowd!") and the sound was great. They brought their A-game and their brass band, mixing up the songs so that each was sort of 'the same but different' when compared to the recorded version. Also liked the way that the appropriate sound for all of Daniel's different facial expressions is an expostulated 'yeah' (exclamation mark optional).
As it had been at the Big Day Out, "Finer Feelings" was a bit of a highlight; likewise "Don't Make Me A Target" and "Cherry Bomb" and spectral "The Ghost of You Lingers", and of course all those brill songs from Gimme Fiction ("the Beast and Dragon, Adored", "Monsieur Valentine", "I Turn My Camera On", etc). They also did "The Way We Get By" (though it wasn't a live standout, I still got a kick out of hearing it), and all up it was very, very fine - along with Bjork's BDO set, the best show I've been to at least since Neko Case about a year ago, and another brick in the 'Spoon are really damn great' wall that's been built in my parts over recentish (scale of years) times.
The two recent Spoon shows, by the way, have fortified me in reckoning that Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is their best yet...
(w/ David + Justine)
