War on Drugs/Spoon – Brisbane Riverstage December 9th

There are few things lovelier than being riverside in Brisbane at that moment on a hot summer day when the sun retreats behind the hills and a gentle breeze kicks in. So it was that Ms Podicle and I found ourselves on Saturday evening in the lovely city botanical gardens waiting to see Spoon and War on Drugs on the river stage. I would have happily paid the entry for either of these bands, so to have them both on the same ticket was a treat. The venue is a grassy amphitheater nestled between the river and the gardens, and it would be hard to find a more relaxed and pastoral setting in the middle of a major city.

First up was Indigo Spark, which I think was the name of the singer of the directionless trio on stage. Lots of two-chord drones with indie-chick vocals and paroxysmal changes in intensity. You know the type. Indigo told us a couple of times that she had just returned from several years in the States, and she seems to have brought some rhotic Rs back with her and left her actual songs behind. We spent the entire act trying to figure out where the bass parts were coming from, as there were only two guitars and drums on stage. Possibly Geddy-style bass pedals or an octave pedal? This was literally the only point of interest, and I suspect there was plenty of standing room at her merch table.

Spoon came on just as twilight kicked in and the fruit bats were stirring from the river mangroves. They were brilliant. Catchy songs, tight band and a genuinely engaging frontman in Britt Daniel, although guitarist/keyboard player Alex Fischel was the centre of attention much of the time, attacking his instruments like an angry Jack Black. There seemed to be ongoing and frustrating technical issues with his guitar pedalboard which may have contributed. Spoon played for an hour, and that is the perfect, fat-free set length for a band like them, or pretty much any other band for that matter (foreshadowing).

When War on Drugs put out Lost in the Dream in 2013, I was an instant convert. It’s an album chock full of great songs, and the Dylan meets Neil Young meets Dancing in the Dark vibe really works. I reached back to their first album, and it didn’t really grab me. The sonic elements were there but the songs were missing. I lasted one more album with 2017s A Deeper Understanding, but it just sounded like Dream out-takes. Here’s the one that sounds like Red Eyes, the one that sounds like Ocean Between the Waves etc. It’s not a bad album at all, it had just been done better a few years before. A couple of listens to subsequent albums confirmed the same pattern.

And this was the problem with them live. Let me be clear, they sounded fantastic, as they would want to with so many people on stage (including 3 keyboards). The setting coupled with the wash of sound was magical. When they hit those key songs off Dream (Red Eyes, Under the Pressure, Ocean Between the Waves, Eyes to the Wind) they were about as good as any live band I’ve ever seen. The problem was that the 2-hour set just had too-little variation. I actually got confused towards the end thinking at one point “Ah, this is the one off Deeper Understanding that sounds like Eyes to the Wind” only to find that it was the one off the most recent album that sounded like the one off Deeper Understanding that sounded like Eyes to the Wind. You get the point. They finished with three medium tempo, virtually indistinguishable songs, and here I must confess that Ms Podicle literally fell asleep on her feet, leaning on me and waking with a start each time there was a particularly loud snare crack or similar. If they’d played for a hour, it would have been one of the best gigs I’d ever seen.

In the interests of balance, I must say that thousands of others apparently didn’t have the same problem, singing along with each line and even the guitar solos. I did notice that the audience was of two distinct groups: 40-60 year old blokes and partners and young (and, I must say, very attractive) women. Made me think that maybe they picked up a new fanbase through some movie/TV/meme exposure.

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