Bad Idea Show Review: Spoon at the Vogue

This past Saturday, I was able to check yet another band off my list of "Favorite Bands I've yet to see live" list (Rilo Kiley and The Shins, you're next). Spoon came to Indy to rock and/or roll the house, and for once, Indy lived up to the honor. Oftentimes, musicians skip Indianapolis despite our "crossroads of America"convenience. We don't have the musical heritage of Nashville, or Chicago, or Cleveland, so they skip us. We also don't sell out shows that should. Mick Jagger refuses to bring the Rolling Stones to Indy because the last time they did, their show didn't sell out the RCA Dome (Hoosiers hate peacock impressions). Anyway, in the last few years, things have picked up a bit. I snagged two tickets to this show just days before it sold out, so my friend (we'll protect their anonymity and just call them Foy) headed to the show.

Here is a list of things that Foy and I learned while at the Spoon show:

#1: Maracas make every song 30% better. If the maracas are yellow, bump that up to 40%. If the yellow maracas are thrown offstage at the crescendo of the song? 50% better, guaranteed!

#2: People-watching is half the fun of concert-going (Foy has a God-given talent for this). Sure, it's all about the music. Only it's not. It's also about watching people try to dance. It's about the 60-year-old gent standing in the back, bopping along to "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb." It's about the growingly drunk, balding, 36-year-old who knows every word and acts out the lyrics as if he's leading the hand motions at a grade school liturgy. It's about the boyfriends who were forced to come and appear to be in a slight coma, while their girlfriends get all hot and bothered (though, in the end, this probably works to the boyfriend's advantage).

#3: Spoon seems cater-made to my concert tastes. They played the songs relatively true to form. There was minimal banter in between. They weren't alienating the crowd by telling inside jokes on stage or talking to each other during songs. They weren't wasted. They played their songs, nice and tight, and moved on. Here's their set-list:

1. Don't You Evah
2. Chicago At Night (Though Spoon was a relatively new band for her, Foy recognized this one before I did. I then buried my head in shame)
3. Someone Something
4. My Mathematical Mind
5. Stay Don't Go
6. The Ghost of You Lingers
7. Eddie's Ragga
8. Jonathon Fisk
9. Everything Hit's At Once
10. You Got Your Cherry Bomb (this is when the maracas went flying)
11. Black Like Me
12. Don't Make Me A Target
13. They Never Got You
14. I Summon You
15. The Underdog (my favorite song of 2007, and even without a horn section, it still delivered)
16. Finer Feelings

Encore
1. Don't You Evah (yes, they opened the encore with the same song they opened the show with. I don't think I've ever seen this done before. They played it in a more subdued manner, and then credited Ted Leo, saying they learned it from him. I'm not hip enough to know what that means)
2. I Turn My Camera On (again, Foy kept beating me in the "name that tune in 'however many' notes" game)
3. Rhythm & Soul
4. Small Stakes
5. Panic (Smiths Cover)

• I was expecting them to end with "Sister Jack," but this cover was an appropriate end to the night. On weekends, the Vogue schedules concerts early, opening the doors at 6:30 pm, so that they can have the rock show, then sweep everyone out by 10:00 pm, give the club a quick once-over, and then re-open at 11:00 pm as a dance club. This is usually awkward for both the audience (who find themselves out on the street with the whole night ahead of them) and the band (who, as Spoon said, had 4 hours to kill until they had to be back at the bus). So it wasn't a surprise when the crowd went berserk as Britt Daniel sang "Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/Because the music that they constantly play/IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE"

Finally, to soothe my "Sister Jack" fix: