Spoon @ Bowery Ballroom, 4/23/07

This was my first time seeing Spoon; a band that I have a tremendous amount of respect for but I wouldn't count myself as anything more than a casual fan. The show was only announced a week ago and sold out immediately. I wanted to take advantage of seeing them in what I'm assuming to be a smaller sized venue for this stage in their careers. I'm not sure that I've ever seen Bowery Ballroom so packed. Whether they had a larger guest list or just released more tickets, I don't know, but it was far more crowded than the the last sold out show I attended there (Klaxons).

Fluxblog has a copy of the setlist for those who are interested. I really liked a couple of the new songs; all of them appeared to fit in well with their back-catalog. Spoon plays an incredibly tight set which is credit to years of touring. Their live shows are masterful almost to a fault. It seemed to lack some energy or excitement (my only request for Britt: when you're rocking out on guitar, face the crowd - we want to see you). I never really got the sense that the crowd was very into the songs; appreciative, yes but not really into them. Seeing them live, its a bit more clear to me that this is a band with a lot of very good songs but not many great ones - those bangers that really get crowds pumped up. Maybe, in a different setting with a lively crowd, I would have felt differently but just one opinion from a casual fan.