Spoon/Buffalo Killers/Great Northern/Happy Chichester at the LC in Columbus, OH

Last night marked the return of Spoon to Columbus, OH, this time, however, the general public could buy tickets. With coats wrapped tightly around our shivering torsos and hats pulled down well over our ears, we shuffled the hundred yards from the car through the 20 degree cold to the sparsely filled venue. The show was sold out, but at 7:30PM, still 45 minutes before Happy Chichester was set to open the festivities, not many folks had braved the frigid air to catch the first few bands. This would change, of course, by the time Spoon launched into a spot-on rendition of the song that most of the crowd had come to hear, "The Underdog". That's the track that's been getting heavy airplay on CD101, topping the daily request list for weeks on end, and it's clearly the track that got so many CD101 listeners away from their warm living rooms on this wintry Monday night.

Local opener, Happy Chichester, is a one-man throwback to the salad days of late-nineties college rock (see: Soul Coughing). Sure, he's a founding member of Royal Crescent Mob, Howlin' Maggie, and The Twilight Singers, as well as a contributor to Greg Dulli's first band, The Afghan Whigs, but he's also a great multi-instrumentalist. I was immediately impressed with the on-the-fly beatbox sample for his first number, and continued to enjoy his more rocking numbers throughout the set. The two piano ballads he decided to include were probably not the best choice for such a large venue, as the energy he had gained with the first few songs was lost on the largely ambivalent crowd.

The second of the three openers (I know, we thought that was too many as well), Great Northern, gave us a hearty helping of fittingly cold and atmospheric tunes. With music that alternately gazed intently at the shoes of everyone involved and soared across the frost-coated steel rafters of the venue, it was quite an appropriate accompaniment to the first true taste of winter here in Central Ohio. The vocals of Rachel Stolte lent a fragile edge to the soaring, powerful guitars that filled many of their songs, often complimented with beautiful harmonies by fellow vocalist, Solon Bixler. Their last tune, "Into the Sun", however, showcased a rocking side of their personality that had been absent, which turned out to be a perfect taste to get us all in the mood for the dirty, drunken guitars of Cincinnati's own, Buffalo Killers.

That dirty, drunken sound was one that was sorely lacking the last time Spoon came through town, replaced as they were by a pouty, immature Times New Viking. And with the first beer soaked notes of vocalist/bassist Zachary Gabbard (read- Man-Bear-Guitar-Vocalist), the tone shifted from the delicate, soaring shoegaze of Great Northern to the rocking, sloppy-yet-tight style of rock that we all came to see. The Southern tinged tunes that Buffalo Killers came at us with made it abundantly clear that they would be equally at home opening for a band like Spoon as they would be opening for any number of the old guard currently touring the State Fair circuit. Now, that's not a bad thing by any means, rather, it's a compliment that this group of young guys have the kind of rock chops to hang with the big dogs like Merle Haggard, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Charlie Daniels. This hard rockin', hard drinkin' band (all venue chug contest, anyone?) easily got us all riled up and ready for Spoon with their tight set.

Spoon came out and surprised probably everyone in attendance by playing something that was unknown to many of the concertgoers (myself included). I'm not sure if it was an older tune or just a short snippet of something else entirely, but what it wasn't was a song that anybody in the crowd recognized. That moment of apprehension was quickly assuaged, though, when they launched into the fantastic, "Rhthm & Soul" from the equally awesome album, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga". With barely a beat dropped they slid into the scorching, "Don't Make Me A Target," full of vitriol, venom, and violence. Spittle was still flying from Britt's mouth when the band took the crowd on the inexorable, treacherous journey that is "The Beast and Dragon Adored", this time punctuated with sharp stabs of energy and Daniels' trademark guitar freak-outs.

With tunes like the first few, it was easy to forget that a good portion of the crowd had only come to hear one song, "The Underdog", but when they started playing the droning, "The Ghost of You Lingers", it was painfully obvious. The quiet build was lost on the masses as the band took the spooky, subdued number and launched it into the stratosphere with absolutely massive drums that literally shook me to the bone. But looking around, nobody cared, which was sad; they were missing out.

Just because the crowd seemed largely unimpressed with "The Ghost...", that's not to say that the energy wasn't high. Quite the contrary. From what I could see, most of the folks were having a great time (even if there was an extremely high Douchebag quotient, but then, you'll have that with 5 dollar tickets). Spoon was in top form, clearly feeding off the larger crowd and turning in an appropriately huge performance. While the Skully's show might have been infinitely more intimate, this show proved what a great live act Spoon is, with the power to rock a sold out mid-level venue in a major market.

Which is why I was so flabbergasted when they finally did play the song everybody in Columbus knows by now. With the final notes of "The Underdog" still hanging in the air, I was amazed to see a mass exodus from the pit. 100 people or so decided that they had seen all they cared to see and chose to leave the show early. What they missed was another stellar track from "Ga Ga...", "Black Like Me" (not to mention the encore, but we'll get to that in a minute). I've never seen anything quite like that in all the years I've been going to concerts, not even at the Electric Six show a few weeks ago did so many people leave so suddenly after the band played their current "hit song". But there we were, enjoying "Black Like Me" as streams of people once again braved the cold rather than hear the rest of the excellent show. I was even more surprised when this event repeated itself not ten minutes later as a second wave of people took off before the encore. I mean, honestly, how many bands do YOU know that don't come back on for an encore? I'd like to think that the folks that left genuinely didn't know better, but I'm afraid I'm quite wrong there. Sure the show went a little longer than I had anticipated, but with songs like "Japanese Cigarette Case" and "I Turn My Camera On" still unplayed, you had to know they would rock them out in the encore (which they did, along with three other songs). So it was with disbelief that we trudged ourselves back to a very cold car, but at least we did it knowing the band was actually done playing (and they had played pretty much every great song we wanted to hear, and then some!)

Happy Chichester: Official MySpace Buy
Great Northern: Official MySpace Buy
Buffalo Killers: Official MySpace Buy
Spoon: Official MySpace Buy

"A Man Needs An Airplane" Happy Chichester
"City of Sleep" Great Northern
"SS Nowhere" Buffalo Killers
"Rhthm & Soul" Spoon