They're standing up the block and down the street

"It's hard to imagine building a song out of less," I told my friend as Spoon finished playing "The Way We Get By" last night at the Fillmore, and I meant it in a positive way. Much of the song is played with only two instruments at a time, and the key riffs in the song each consist of fewer than five notes apiece. Britt Daniel even finds a way to pack two words into one syllable during the chorus: "That's the way we get by/'sthe way we get by/'sthe way we get by." Minimalism, they say. Econo.

I suppose one of the dangers of playing music this tightly wound is that it's hard to break loose onstage. That wasn't a problem last night. I have seen a show where the band almost seemed to be rehearsing their cues, but that wasn't the case last night. Daniel's entire body appeared to be fully tensed as he sang the first song, "The Beast And Dragon, Adored," and he seemed to choke out every line as if the words might not make it out of his throat. Eventually he was waving the guitar in front of the amps, making feedback, making noise. The whole show felt like a controlled explosion, like compressed air coming out of a can.

Jim Eno plays drums as you might expect a chip designer to play: very, very logically. I have the impression that his drumsticks arrive at the good ideas just before your ears do, if that makes sense. (He's a good houseguest, too.) I have heard criticism that Eno's creativity might have been stifled on the new record as the band tried to be as minimalist as possible, but I didn't see any evidence of that as he played the Gimme Fiction material last night.

Josh Zarbo's bass sound is ridiculously thick. Especially when the amps are only a few feet away from you.

Anyway the band ran through at least twenty, probably close to twenty-five songs, pretty much flawlessly. Last night's show was the second in two nights, and I know that a lot of bands like to take a day off from traveling when they get to SF. It's a fun town, it's eleven hours from Portland and seven or eight from LA, and there's usually a reason to book two shows and cool off in the comfortable weather for a day or so during a hot summer tour. A lot of bands seem to have great second nights here.

Separately: I will be tantalizingly close to Ted Leo and the Pharmacists several times this weekend on the East Coast, but will most likely miss them. Drat.


FMFM: The wonderful "Bragging Party," from Kim Deal's record as The Amps