Spoon Turns An Entire Festival “Inside Out”

Spoon Turns An Entire Festival “Inside Out”

Pixar’s newest film Inside Out has already amassed a Metacritic score of 93. But no matter how wonderful it might be (I haven’t seen it yet), it’s got nothing on Spoon’s “Inside Out,” the best track from last year’s They Want My Soul and perhaps the best song the band’s ever penned (despite what more trusted Stereogum voices than me might say). When Spoon glided into the tune near the end of their set, a seismic shift took place; Britt Daniel dropped his ever-cool nonchalance and ventured out to the front lines of the crowd, howling on the verses until his voice cracked and pulled the way it does when he really goes for it. Keys players Eric Harvey and Alex Fischel traded cloudy bursts during the song’s majestic middle passages. Jim Eno brought the boom-bap. And by the end, all had hands in the air, swaying and reaching for the song’s magnetic center — that piece of soft heaven assembled from processed sounds and three basic chords. The rest of their set was righteous, of course: a Cramps cover, an armada of classic Spoon hits up front, etc. But none escaped the intense gravity of “Inside Out.” None wanted to.