Reviewed on Thursday March 23 (photo by Ashley Mar)
Mike Nogahas the devil in him. The one-time drummer for The Drones has emerged from the shadows and become a verifiable onstage horror, bolstered in no small part by the release of his excellent new upcoming recordKing.
Indeed, taking to the Metro Theatre stage on Thursday, the man drank up the spotlight as though it were so much cheap gin, backed by an insidiously tight set of reprobates hurling ugly rock’n’roll into the wide-eyed audience. It was vicious, and it was mean, and though ‘Nobody Leads Me To Flames’ was the highlight, the set impressed from its cruel beginnings to its car crash end. And throughout all of it there was Noga, sweating like a preacher with gout and rasping hard into the microphone squeezed between his hands.
In many ways then, what followed was a distinct change of pace: Noga is not so much Elvis reborn as he is Elvis reanimated, while Spoon’s Britt Daniels is more of a Bowie sort, all tendril-like and taut. And, crucially, though Noga’s music is designed to appal and attract in equal measure, Spoon bypass the first and aim squarely for the second, their songs exuding a clean, neat sort of generosity and wit.
Not to make them sound feckless or safe, mind you. If their new record Hot Thoughts proves anything, it’s that Spoon are unwilling – or perhaps unable – to work to any kind of type. And, thrillingly, their show reflected that, as the band blasted through a bevy of brilliant recent songs – ‘Do I Have To Talk You Into It’, ‘Hot Thoughts’ and ‘WhisperI’lllistentohearit’ included – before they began reinterpreting and repurposing their back catalogue.
Sometimes that tendency to rework material seemed born of practical concerns: you can’t play ‘The Underdog’ as it appears on record unless you’ve brought a small army of musicians along with you, after all. But at other points it seemed as though the band were simply going off-road because they wanted to; because it appealed to them. The springy, spectacular ‘I Turn My Camera On’ became an extended freak out, while ‘My Mathematical Mind’ turned into one long crescendo, exhilarating and clumsy in equal measure.
By the time the show wrapped up, it became obvious that the only person having more fun than the adoring fans in the front row was Daniels. Smiling and winking at the audience, dipping to take a selfie with the youngest crowd member in the room, he was as open and accessible as one of his songs. One can only hope he returns to us soon.
