Talk about coincidence...Late (and I mean late) in the day on Friday I was handed two tickets to Saturday's Spoon show in Baltimore. Saturday was also my blog birthday (for lack of a better term). In my first ever blog post I mentioned that I hoped to find out why Spoon isn't the biggest band in the world, so that made for a pleasant surprise when their area show fell on the same day.

Seriously though, it's not like it takes much to get me excited about seeing one of my favorite bands. I've been a fan since Series of Sneaks . We used to have a promo copy of that album at the office and I listened to it constantly, just to hear the "Ma ma ma, Ma ma ma, Ma ma ma" in "Car Radio." Best. "30 Gallon Tank" is easily one of my 10 favorite songs evah. I could go on...

The last time I saw Spoon was at the Pitchfork Festival last year, which I'm sure most people would agree wasn't their best hour. They just seemed out of sorts and under-rehearsed, and I'm not saying that just because I'm still bitter that they didn't play "Chicago at Night." Saturday's show, however, was completely different. They sounded tight and wowed the crowd as they worked their way through a set mostly filled with material from their last two albums and a smattering of songs from the upcoming Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. The only old stuff they played was "Fitted Shirt," "I Could See The Dude," and "Anything You Want." The last song in particular was a real treat. I heart Girls Can Tell.

That was also my first ever trip to Sonar in Baltimore, which is a nice enough place but I'm not sure if I'll be going back anytime soon. There are four big columns in the middle of the room, and that, coupled with a seemingly impenetrable line of tall people running through the middle of the venue made seeing anything pretty much impossible. And I have no idea who was doing the lights at the show, but they were obviously a noob. The show was basically lit by four spotlights mounted in the middle of the room, which is like going to see one of your favorite artists and having them lit by four high powered flashlights. The stage had all sorts of lights on it, and they were all working for the opener The Oranges Band (who weren't half bad), but they couldn't figure it out for the headliners. That was terribly frustrating because I thought the lighting set up was going to lead to some nice shots. Alas, we're stuck with the B & W shots above. I don't feel bad complaining about the lighting though, because Britt complained about it all through the show (as well he should have). Still, all in all a great show. I even bought a shirt!

Here are some live Spoon tracks to get you as excited as I was in Saturday:
[MP3] Spoon | The Two2 Sides of Monsieur Valentine (live)
[MP3] Spoon | The Way We Get By (Live on WERS)

Lastly: I'm trying out a new slideshow app I found online. What do you think? Better than me posting one or two pics and directing you to Flickr? Worse? Thoughts?