REVIEW: Spoon at Summerfest
Spoon were ending a run of 15 months on the road at Summerfest on Sunday night, but if you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have been able to tell when they hit the stage at the Harley-Davidson Roadhouse. The band have been supporting “Hot Thoughts”, which was released in March of last year, and have been touring relentlessly since. The mood definitely felt like a Sunday night; while most of the patrons at the Roadhouse had the dread of returning to work on Monday morning, Spoon had the bittersweet relief of finally getting some time off. That being said, they were ready to go out with a bang.
A fairly sizeable crowd made their way to the Harley-Davidson Roadhouse in time for the band’s 9:45 start time, which they made the most of. There was a minimal amount of stage banter, with several songs flowing right into one another. Frontman Britt Daniel was genuine in his time with the microphone, though, pointing out specific fans that he remembered from their last visit to Milwaukee in September.
The set got rolling, and really hit its groove about three songs in, when “I Turn My Camera On” seemed to bring the crowd to life. While a good portion of “Hot Thoughts” made up the set list, there was a smattering of Spoon favorites from the course of the band’s discography. A good byproduct of the band being on the road together for over a year is that they sounded as tight as ever, at times sounding as close to a recreation of their recorded work as they can be. If there were any stumbles, it was minor enough to be indistinguishable.
In keeping with the Daniel’s genuineness, the band took a moment out to thank their crew by name in the middle of the show. It was endearing, and didn’t seem to detract from the set in the slightest. He did, however, sound a little cryptic in his mentioning of the last show on tour, making it sound as though it was their last show ever, even though that’s very likely to not be the case. That moment was only temporary, though, as the band proceeded to move forward with the more commercially successful portion of the show. The crowd came out of its collective shell as the night went on, breaking out into a full dance party by the time that “The Underdog” began to ring out throughout the Roadhouse.
In total, the band played a roughly 75 minute main set, only to take a brief intermission, and returned with a four song encore. Milwaukee didn’t want to leave their weekend behind, and it felt like Spoon didn’t want to end their tour just yet, either. It was a solid fit for a Sunday night, and the perfect way to head into the intermission of Summerfest.
