On the first of two shows in Seattle, Spoon filled the Moore Theater Friday night with fans, fun and a fantastic lineup. I entered the theater after I inexplicably acquired two after-show passes and took a seat up towards the front for the openers. In fact, I didn’t actually take my assigned seat until Spoon started their set.
The theater was virtually vacant for the first act, Micachu and the Shapes, who pushed through their eccentric set of songs laced with cowbells and bottle percussion, as well as some insistent feedback ringing from the front speakers. They acknowledged it at one point – “Sorry for the buzzing.” 
And someone shouted from the audience – “Keep playing and we won’t hear it!” Micachu and the Shapes was far more experimental than the two bands that followed, but it does suck that they didn’t get a better crowd. I quite liked “Vulture,” as its ambient sound almost made sense with the buzzing feedback. But it was an early door time. People didn’t feel like getting an early dinner before the doors opened at 6:30. My dinner consisted of a maple bar, so I had no trouble making the opening bands.
After Micachu finished their set, there was a short turnover time before more photographers started showing up for Deerhunter. At this point, the number of attendees in the theater grew by quite a bit. Now that I’ve seen the show, I feel bad for everyone who didn’t make it to see Deerhunter, because they were so good they didn’t feel like openers at all. Singer Bradford Cox and the gang came out on stage, and awestruck by the size of the theater or something else, proclaimed “what the fuck is going on?” This turned out to be a theme throughout their show – disbelief. I almost felt like a terrible person for not being familiar with their music before this show, but I’m surely familiar with them now.
The set was so casual, with Deerhunter tripping across the stage, breaking out into laughter at times, and during “Nothing Ever Happens,” a friend of band jumped up on stage and shimmied around with maracas. She crawled on the floor underneath Cox’s legs as he played and she licked the guitar strings, climbed on the drums and leapt around the stage, stumbling into every band member. All of this culminated into a long, drawn-out version of “Calvary Scars,” where Cox exclaimed how surreal it was to be twenty-seven in Seattle at the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. “I’ll never be 27!” he repeated several times, as he waxed poetic about his twelve-year-old self, his own contemplation of suicide, and his unbelievable dream of his dead idol coming down from heaven to take vengeance on all the high school bullies. The whole thing was magical and felt completely personal, like we’d never see the same show again.
By this time, the Moore Theater was basically full. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting in an empty seat up front after I was finished shooting. But I didn’t care. I could have been on the second mezzanine and it still would have been amazing. I caught a glimpse of the set list, and it was huge. I knew we’d be there for awhile, rocking out to a smorgasbord of Spoon.
It was a hodgepodge of old and new stuff. Spoon played most of Transference, some select favorites from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but a lot of Gimme Fiction. In fact, during “I Turn My Camera On,” I could see another of the photographers making frames with her hands up to her face. You could surely tell that the audience was full of new and old fans of Spoon. They have been around for about 15 years now, so it was to be expected that there would be fans mix age and below as well as fans my parents’ age.
They jumped right into their two hour-set with “Before Destruction” off Transference and moved swiftly into more of my favorites. The intimate, dome-shaped Moore Theater glowed with the spotlights reflecting off the walls, revealing the joyous faces of the audience. Britt planted his feet – clad in leather ankle boots – on the stage, strumming the notes of “The Underdog” on his guitar. The instant familiarity sent the audience into an indie rock dance party, even my fellow photographers. I can them on the other side of the stage bopping around with their cameras like silly fangirls at a Jonas Brothers concert.
The crowd swayed back and forth along to Britt Daniel’s flawless delivery, switching from his easy raspy tone to a powerful cry during each song. The one omission from the show that peeved me was “Got Nuffin.” It was nowhere to be found. It turns out that they played it the next night instead of Friday. I wanted “Got Nuffin,” but what I got was so amazing that I didn’t even care at the time.
Spoon also implored some friendly faces to play with them during the show. Seattle’s own Michael Lerner, a.k.a. Telekinesis played snare on a select few songs, and Cox stepped back out to play when Daniel just crooned into the mic without his guitar. When Cox walked on stage with a snowcap on, Daniel swung his guitar off his shoulder and handed it to him. Keyboardist Eric Harvey played the cool and sexy opening riffs of “Who Makes Your Money” and Daniel sauntered around the stage singing his “oh, oh, ooos” to the audience directly in front. He threw his head back and shouted the hook while Bradford snuck up behind him and thrust the neck of his guitar between Daniel’s legs. He stared down at his groin and continued crooning, “who makes your money? Who makes you money?” then shoved Cox back playfully as the audience giggled along with them. Soon after, Daniel set down his guitar and jumped into the crowd to wake up the one guy who wasn’t on his feet. Really, the guy was sleeping.
Taking a trip through oldies-but-goodies, I was completely satisfied with my Spoon experience. Even though I was hoping to hear “Got Nuffin,” I left on a pleasant note, as the finished on an high note with one of my favorite Spoon songs, “Jonathan Fisk.” And more dancing ensued. I loved the show’s friendly environment. It was awesome. If the security guards hadn’t been walking up and down the aisles making sure people stayed out of them, I’m pretty sure people would have started dancing with each other during several of the songs right down the aisles. As the show finished at about 11:30, I almost wanted to get tickets to Saturday’s show just to extend the greatness that I’d just experienced for another day, but I had work to do the next day. But I think if I’d seen Spoon two days in a row, I may have overdosed on awesome.
