Spoon / The Ponys
By Tim Bugbee
Monday. Nov 12, 1:12 PM
live at The Roxy (Boston, MA) Oct. 17th, 2007.

I wonder if the guys in Spoon enjoy rollercoasters. Considering their career trajectory, I'd think they have no choice by now. Busting straight out of the gates on what at the time was arguably the strongest indie label going (Matador, earned via the critical and commercial success from the likes of Pavement, Liz Phair, Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and others), their debut was met with good attention from indie rock buyers and augured for a strong, bright future. Coming in at the tail end of the major label feeding frenzy/indie roster raiding, they were soon snapped up by Elektra, who promptly didn't know what to do with their excellent Series of Sneaks (I think I got it via a cut-out bin for a few bucks) and cast 'em back to the indie ghetto pronto. Faced with this dizzying up and down spiral, they went on to release their finest record (Girls Can Tell) and found a sympathetic home at Merge, which was slowly but steadily parlayed into such momentum that they recently played Saturday Night Live and are filling up 1500+ venues easily.

Since I'd never seen the band play live, I was curious to see how their tight pop pieces would translate to this new-found audience, and if they'd dip back into some earlier stuff at the expense of the more well-known material from Gimme Fiction or Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (which is holding strong near the top of the list for dumbest titles of '07). Starting out with the new record's closer "Black Like Me" (sadly, no horn section was present) was a bit of an odd twist, but its relaxed, jaunty feel perfectly matched the relaxed, jaunty mood of guitarist/vocalist Britt Daniel as he and his band took the stage to the sold out house, which due to some fights at the club a few months prior, had its capacity reduced from 1300 to 775. This unpleasant fact of market conditions wasn't lost on Britt, who commented on the spacious but closed and empty balcony. Anyway, the Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga songs came out like the perky little creatures they are: the upbeat, bouncy "Cherry Bomb," the YLT-esque "Don't You Evah" (complete with hand claps), a slinky "Rhythm and Soul," all forged a friendly and likeable though bit samey pop sound; I must admit that I prefer the toothier early material where two guitars are predominant, though I can't fault Britt for mixing up the formula, and obviously it's worked out well. The mood was temporarily changed, and for the better, for the sparse reading of "The Ghost of You Lingers," where Britt took the bass and driving keyboard stabs were the only propellant; he was genuinely pleased with how it turned out and made mention that they should play that more often. This quieter style was followed by the acoustic guitar-driven "The Delicate Place," but I was happy when "The Fitted Shirt" made its appearance thereafter: the sharp intro guitar notes and sturdy backbeat framed a great nostalgic look back at Britt's childhood defined by his dad's wardrobe.

That particular song highlighted my personal frustration (well, frustration is a strong word... how about passive indifference?) with Spoon's new direction, where they veered from less of the Rock (like "Nefarious") and more toward the Pop (like "The Underdog," which closed out the regular [and generous, at 19 songs] set). An acute example of this was the Scissors Sister-like "I Turn My Camera On": the falsetto and faux-disco beat just seem so out of place with what my mental picture of the Spoon sound should be. Eventually, the band did reach into the bag of tricks and roll out "Me and the Bean" (though oddly not printed on the set list), "The Minor Tough," and also a cover of "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" by Destroyer. The excellently-named "Quincy Punk Rock Episode" (and I'm old enough to have seen that when it originally aired... “Why make music which makes you hate, when you can make music which makes you love?”) had a bit of chorus blending/blurring with the “ought to leave you” and “would believe you” strikingly reminiscent of Nirvana's “deny all/denial” and Pavement's “career/Korea” word trickery. Since two additional songs from Girls Can Tell appeared in the encore ("Anything You Want" and "Chicago At Night"), I left the club supremely satisfied, and in search of squid and noodles in nearby Chinatown. That left me supremely satisfied as well.

The Ponys played a decent set of Sonic Youth-like rock (with less noise), and the singer in particular was reminiscent of Thurston in height, hair length/style, and vocal sounds. Can't say I was bowled over by them, but they held my interest fair enough. But not enough to buy a CD from the merch table.
www.spoontheband.com
www.theponys.com

Tim Bugbee

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