Spoon Concert Review

Spoon
State Theatre, Ithaca, N.Y.
August 29, 2014

Is there a better live band than Spoon? If you attend concerts often, you likely have seen shows as great as theirs; for me, TV on the Radio at this year’s Governors Ball and The National at State Theatre last May come to mind. These bands, and very few others, are the best of the best, having hit a peak of skill, presence and professionalism in their performances that defies even the most hairsplitting criticism. If you were one of the many buzzing students, locals or out-of-towners packed into the State Friday night, you’d agree that Spoon, brought here by Dan Smalls Presents, treated Ithaca to a couple of perfect hours of spirited music that permitted only one response, and that is love.

This warm, communal feeling settled over the crowd once the opener, Eric Harvey, walked on stage. Harvey, Spoon’s keyboard player and a multi-instrumentalist in his own right, hails from the region and recruited some of Ithaca’s most talented musicians to join him for a varied, though consistently beautiful 45-minute performance. “Varnishing Day” — a shimmering acoustic ballad with the refrain, “Better hold your head up high” — showcased Ithaca cellist Hank Roberts, who dialed the song down to a hushed whisper and then crescendoed for a stirring finish.

During a cover of Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” which featured Mary Lorson on harmonies, Harvey forgot to retune his guitar and said of the slip, “[This is] just a coffee shop gig, for a forgiving audience.” His low-key, forthright music fosters that kind of intimate atmosphere, and indeed the whoops and applause from the crowd assured him this was a night for building up, not breaking down. Rock-oriented instrumentalists closed Harvey’s set with a few basic, effective numbers, one of which ended with a ridiculous keyboard solo by Mike Stark. The local revue spirit of Eric Harvey’s group made it the rare opener that was impossible to ignore, and even rarer, one of which to feel proud.

A short 30 minutes and drastic stage redressing later, guitarist Alex Fischel, drummer Jim Eno, bassist Rob Pope, Harvey and Spoon mastermind Britt Daniel sent the orchestra audience out of their seats and rushing toward the stage as they launched into “They Want My Soul,” the title track off their excellent new album. Daniel, Fischel and Eno wore all black while the rest beamed in all white, a simple color dichotomy that complemented the simplicity of the stage arrangement (just a few tall, white fabric walls) and the dazzling array of lighting set-ups. Some songs rolled by in near darkness, like the second, “Rent I Pay,” where blue spotlights threw Daniel’s spindly shadow onto the surrounding walls. Others went all out with strobes or a spinning disco pyramid (like the ball, but a pyramid), while a few songs illuminated a specific mood, such as “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” with its fitting blood red colors.

Daniel announced early on that this was the first show of their tour, which is an honor that sometimes comes with taxing handicaps, especially in an insular town like ours. There was no dress rehearsal throat-clearing Friday night — just a spectacular, undeniably complicated production fastened to the ground by Spoon’s confidence and likability. “Confident” and “likable” could also be used to describe the most naïve of mainstream rock bands, but Spoon brings too much carnal energy to the stage to be written off as some fleeting confection. The locked-in rhythm guitar of “Who Makes Your Money” or foot-tapping bass of “I Turn My Camera On” belies Fischel’s spontaneous guitar freak-outs and Daniel’s ronin wanderings about the stage. The band fields nothing but pleasure through its individual elements, but taken together, it swerves through a show that is surprising, atomic, unhinged.

If there is a simple way to explain this quality of Spoon’s art, it is this: Britt Daniel is cooler than you. His sandpaper voice must be one of the most indestructible instruments in the business. He sounds like John Lennon did in “Twist and Shout,” except Lennon could only log one (amazing) take before going hoarse and somehow Daniel just stands firm at that precipice, unchanged, throughout a two-hour set.

He also harbors a more punkish, experimental sensibility than his band’s popularity may imply. At the end of “Inside Out,” a recent cut, he milked a minute of Flaming Lips-esque ambience through spacey keyboards, and at the close of “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” he did something similar with raw guitar feedback, manipulating it while on his knees. This was not one of those play, finish, “1-2-3-4!” play again concerts, for Spoon engineered a most entrancing flow.

A brickish thud and a sound engineer’s muffled cries were heard (OK: probably, regarding the second item) when Daniel dropped his mic so that he could fetch a beer during the overplayed “The Way We Get By,” the third song of the encore. Suddenly, those much-copied piano chords did not sound so twee; Daniel somehow found an edge to that one. He pulled a Bob Dylan when it came time for the band’s biggest hit, “The Underdog,” by improvising new rhythms and lagging behind the audience’s enthusiastic downbeat claps. Old becomes new yet again.

These antics were all playful, for Daniel was — and I imagine thoroughly is — not the least bit contemptuous. He thanked his crew, of all moves. The most charming moments of the evening came whenever Daniel acknowledged the demonstrably excited man flailing about just below his microphone stand. Instead of ignoring or avoiding him, Daniel, in his typically inclusive way, sang to him on his knees, let him snap a picture and, after the man briefly disappeared at the start of the encore, heralded his return to the front row. He turned what could have been a visible distraction (the guy enjoyed shaking his fist like it was a maraca, which is, like, mesmerizing) into part of the show, part of the Spoon family.

Near the end, Pope announced, “This is the only time we’ve seen a theater crowd standing the whole time.” Who knows if that is actually true, but the unceasing gratitude, heard not only through whistles and applause but actually seen through an absence of smartphone screens, camera flashes and crowd disturbances, grew out of the preternatural brilliance of Spoon’s performance. It was a concert good enough to bring the audience, like Daniel, to its knees; but then again, we didn’t because we’d be missing the show.

This article was written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location here. 

Elvis Costello Concert Review

Elvis Costello
At State Theatre, Ithaca, N.Y.
On Thursday, November 7, 2013

There is an awesome dissonance to Elvis Costello’s genius: He’s got that voice, as recognizable as David Bowie’s or Van Morrison’s (if you think about it, it pretty much sounds like a marriage of the two) that has hardly changed after  more than 40 years of belting. But then you’ve got his actual music — 32 studio albums worth, kicking off with radio-friendly punk before spiraling into soul, country, folk, electronica, jazz and classical. Hell, he made an album with The Roots this year. The word “chameleon” is often used to describe Costello, and rightly so, yet he’s the same guy, with the same voice, the same glasses, the trademark suits and fedoras. If there is any venue in Ithaca where time can, for a little over two hours, at least, slow down and where the man himself can open up, it is our very own State Theatre, where Costello played a solo set Thursday night courtesy of Dan Smalls Presents. Turns out Elvis Costello is not only a virtuosic performer but also a gracious, funny guy eager to look back on his roots, music history and the popular enigma he has erected in his name.

A jumbo-sized “On Air” sign idled by stage right before the show began. There was little other ornamentation up there, save for an intimidating number of guitars (I counted five). My eyes wandered over the State Theatre’s walls, ceilings and lamps, soaking in their history. Not long after a beaming Costello, sans opener, took the stage at 8 p.m. and the “On Air” sign lit up, he made sure to applaud his surroundings. “I’m making an effort to play all the old vaudeville theaters,” he said humbly, reminiscing about when he first visited America and made sure to see all the monuments: “The St. Louis Arch, the Empire State Building … and Ithaca.” “Rock and roll was invented here in Ithaca, you know,” he quipped later in the night, “concocted in a science lab here in Cornell, before anyone wanted it.” A genuine appreciation for our town and his audience buoyed any dry sarcasm, which could explain why this sold-out crowd greeted every song with some of the loudest, most passionate ovations I have ever heard.

He earned it. From the first song, My Aim Is True’s “Welcome to Working Week,” Costello radiated excitement. On “King Horse,” he toyed with pedal reverb and stuck all the requisite high notes and then some. His voice held strong to the end, although he called on audience participation now and then. At times, the call-and-response echoed the scatting of Cab Calloway — as during his performance of “America Without Tears,” where he approached something like delirium with complicated doo-wop and trills. When covering The Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” he egged everyone on to really shout the “Hey!” that precedes the eponymous chorus — he seemed so happy to perform a song he has clearly loved since childhood. Just to balance the mood, perhaps, he got the crowd to reiterate, “Now I’m dead … I was scared,” a bunch of times in “God’s Comic.” This call-and-response got louder and louder and, by song’s end, felt more cathartic than macabre.

If the back-and-forth is any indication, Costello hosted an atypically intimate night of music and chatting about music. “This is a socio-political survey,” he announced early on, “about the last [50 to 70 years] of history and my place in it.” A proven legend like Elvis Costello can spout as many self-aggrandizing boasts as he wants, as far I’m concerned, yet this quote turned out to be a wordy precursor to a selfless and sentimental examination of his family and influences. In between a Nat King Cole cover, “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” and “Ghost Train,” he joked about his late father, a musician who “looked like a hippie” or Peter Sellers fromWhat’s New Pussycat? (think Velma from Scooby Doo). His dad once booked him a gig as a backup guitarist before he even knew how to play. Costello improvised, going crazy on air guitar to the befuddlement of his older audience. He actually learned how to play guitar, of course, and, in those Born to Run days, he wanted nothing more than to be Bruce Springsteen. This idealism produced “Radio Soul,” a highlight of the evening and a much more romantic precursor to the scathing hit “Radio Radio.” This reflection granted Costello an opportunity to weigh in on the power of music, which he believes mixes internal emotions with the drama of melody and dynamics to create something uniquely empathetic. Given the evidence, I don’t think he could find one naysayer for miles around.

When his narrative arrived at his grandfather, Costello worked the audience like a seasoned comic, with speculation about how his ancestor was too “finely dressed” for a trumpet player: he must have been a smuggler, too. This levity segued into talk of the Great Depression and “Jimmie Standing in the Rain,” the strongest and most heartrending song of the night. The ache of his voice as he sang that borrowed last line, “I’m your pal/Brother, can you spare me a dime?” away from his microphone lingered in the air before being swept up by exuberant cheers from every soul in attendance. A similar vibe informed “Alison,” which he sang with little movement and his hat tilted down. He hushed his guitar to let his melismatic vocals take over. In such a charged, nostalgic atmosphere, that oft-repeated line, “I’m not gonna get too sentimental …” revealed its true colors.

By the second encore (thats right, second), Costello took requests with a loud, red, light-up “Requests” sign. A tender rendition of “Tripwire” on electric guitar morphed into a wild “(What’s So Funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” which ended in a carnal loop of guitar feedback. Costello met multiple standing ovations with a bow and quick retreat back to the guitar or, by the end, keyboard, holding a finger up in the hair to indicate “Just one more.” He actually followed up with two more, ending on the somber ballad “The Puppet Has Cut His Strings,” which reaffirmed worked more to reaffirm the pathos of the second-act songs than the comic, pub-like feel of the first act. We got close to the man, we laughed with him, we exchanged compliments. By the end, that internal artistry reclaimed its hold, bringing the mood down while keeping our spirits high. Elvis Costello shared something special with us Thursday, something complete. But he, like every true genius, left the stage a puzzle unsolved.

This article was written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.