Britt Daniel Intimate Accoustic

Last night Britt Daniel, of legendary Spoon fame and responsible for 5 of the best albums of the past decade, played to an intimate crowd of about 150 at the Crocodile Cafe as a benefit for Muscular Dystrophy Research. As Spoon is a band that normally sells out venues like the Bowery Ballroom in NYC within 2 hours, it was a surprise to be standing 3 feet from the action and NOT be slammed against everyone else. The intimacy of this setting made for a rather quiet and self conscious start for Britt. Once the crowd showed it’s obvious adoration for him, the colar and guitar strings began to loosen and there was a steady increase in volume and energy as the songs kept pouring forth.

Backed by a lowly sky blue boom-box filled with midi beats, Britt engaged his tiny entourage, trying desperately to keep the time with the unforgiving CD tracks, cracking an occasional joke with the 3 dancers up front (a lot for a Seattle show) and actually playing requests. Granted he most probably had a set playlist in mind and then just agreed to play something once a fan hollered out the next one in line…but we felt special none-the-less.
We were privy to some new tracks from the upcoming Spoon album – rumored to release at the end of this year. If this show was any testament, it’s going to rival the others. There was also a cover tune of the band Law which, once heard, was an obvious inspiration for the songwriter as well as an admitted source for some artistic pilfering.

I could not believe that this show didn’t sell out, and wish for the sake of the MD Researchers that it did, but for me, it was a diamond in the rough of hot and packed venues I’ll be “forced” to endure this summer. Bring it Seattle!