Spoon!

nice to know they are good live.

I have a couple of their albums and honestly i think they are okay... but i can't really get in them.

Maybe one day they will grow on me.

handreads7:30 wrote:

I saw them once and that was good enough for me. Them playing live didn't really do anything for me as I felt they were playing their songs exactly as they are on the records. I thought they were lacking in stage presence. To each their own, right?

To each their own, yes, but I have to disagree with you anyway. I saw them recently and the songs were not the same live as they are on the albums. They use almost every break between verse or chorus to experiment with the guitars, keyboards and drums. It's a mini group-solo everytime there is a break in the vocals for more than 15 seconds, it's really fun to hear them play with the music between the vocal parts. Also, the singer's vocals are very good live so they do sound a lot like the studio songs, but they still switch it up be using the vocal-echo effect in just about every song. Not to the point of it getting annoying(because it is definitely something that could get annoying), but he uses it enough to keep things interesting. Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in on that one.

As for the band, they are great. Their last 4 albums are as good as any other stretch of album any current band has put out over the same timeframe. Girls Can Tell and Kill The Moonlight get rightfully lumped together, similar sounds, but once you spend time with each they are clearly distinctive albums. Then Gimmie Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga are also rightfully lumped together with their obvious pop-tendencies, but, again, over time it becomes clear they are two distinctive albums, even if they are in the same mold. Listening to all 4 you can clearly hear their progression from the clearly non-poppy Girls Can Tell to the pop-overload on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and it all works really well.

For my money, they are the best American band out there right now. They are still in their prime both in the studio and on stage, I cannot wait to hear what they do next.