Gig review: Spoon at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Spoon. Picture: Zackery MichaelSpoon. Picture: Zackery Michael
Spoon. Picture: Zackery Michael
'Leeds, I like the vibe you've got going on here,' Spoon frontman Britt Daniel tells a sold-out main room at the Brudenell Social Club. 'This drinking place you've got outside, it's real cool.'

Either the Texas-born rocker is on unfamiliar territory with beer gardens or he’s playing the crowd in true, time-honed frontman fashion; regardless of which, it’s a welcome return for the critically-acclaimed Austin quartet, as they deliver a taut set of niggling indie jams equal parts sinewy, sexy and thrilling.

It’s been close to a decade since Spoon last cropped up in Leeds; the fact they played at the now long-defunct Cockpit nestled in the city’s Dark Arches is telling of the fact that it’s been a while since they ventured into this neck of the woods. Absence somewhat makes the heart grow fonder though; this show – a one-off date alongside an appearance at London’s All Points East– comes with the air of muted Sunday night contentment, the goodwill from a rare English Test victory at neighbouring Headingley drifting across the LS6 postcode.

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Such serenity isn’t left alone for long; across some dozen-and-a-half songs, Spoon showcase a chameleonic poise and power that, for the most part, is utterly intoxicating.

Always rife with musical invention, their knack for folding disparate genre elements into nominal indie-rock is in full-flow throughout; Do I Have to Talk You Into It may be all Lennon-indebted psych-pop swagger on the surface but uncoiled live, its semi-lucid dream-pop intrusions are magnetic. I Turn My Camera On’s sparse funk groove is not only striking but oddly alluring, as is the barrelling garage-pop of Trouble Comes Running.

Even a brooding foray into post-rock instrumentalism, Via Kannela, is a heady surge; paired with woozy ballad I Ain’t the One, it conjures up, for a moment, silent pin-drop magnificence.

Daniel remains the centrepiece throughout, his Costello-scratched voice loading on raw pathos song after song. On the shimmering synth-gem Inside Out, he drops to his knees in faux-prayer pose, like a man possessed commanding the heavens; for The Underdog, he rasps the verses acapella before the rest of the band fall back in for its bouncy chorus.

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As they close out with the metronomic stomp of Rent Like Me, he grins, arms aloft, before swiftly vanishing into the darkness. It’s an abrupt curtain call; yet the tantalising taste of sensual exhilaration is one that will last long into the night.

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