Review: The War on Drugs and Spoon at Kings Park and Botanic Garden

The War on Drugs and Spoon at Kings Park and Botanic Garden
w/ Indigo Sparke
Monday, December 11, 2023

Perth was in for a stupendous start to the work week as two of the biggest rock bands of the new century played host to a show not soon forgotten at Kings Park and Botanic Garden. Spoon and The War on Drugs are an interesting pairing. Both arena headliners in their own right, they are also the ying to one another’s yang in many ways. Spoon, while as strong as ever, came up in the 2000’s and favour short, sharp, often witty three-minute reminders of how powerful rock can be. The War on Drugs, although seemingly plucked from another time, came up in the 2010’s and play earnest anthems whose intersection of heartland rock with shoegaze-inspired atmospherics result in huge, expansive songs. The audience bore this out, with multiple generations of music fans in attendance for a show that had something for everyone.

One thing shared by both bands is a dyed-in-the-wool American sensibility, and opener Indigo Sparke built on this grassroots appeal. Born in Australia but now based in New York, Sparke has released two strong albums thus far. The former was co-produced by Big Thief frontwoman and former tour buddy Adrianne Lenker, while her latest in 2022’s Hysteria had producer Aaron Dessner (The National, Sharon Van Etten, Taylor Swift) behind the decks. With such credentials, you’d expect the material to be heartfelt, and title track Hysteria certainly lived up to the billing, an introspective folk ballad that saw Sparke’s voice swoop and dive. Given her blonde locks and scarf, she exuded some big Joni Mitchell vibes, and indeed, her material had the same kind of subdued and sophisticated air as the master. Her voice was a different matter, however, able to pair smoky jazz-inflected tones with powerful country-inflected belting. Her pipes carried the show, with other highlights including the wistful Burn and Time Gets Eaten.

Spoon were on next, and school was in session on what a seasoned rock band should strive to sound like in 2023. Perhaps more than any other band over the last 20 years, Spoon have exemplified ‘rock’. Having most in common with fellow guitar riffers like The Black Keys, Spoon are rooted in the six string but their career trajectory has seen them touch on everything between blues rock, soul, and power pop. Their callcard is the love of a good hook, underpinned by intermeshing and downright groovy guitar and piano parts. Despite their huge catalogue, the allocated ninety minutes served as a worthy career summary thanks to some excellent sequencing and tightly coiled playing. The band came on to the slow groove of The Beast and Dragon, Adored, which appropriately namechecks “rock and roll” multiple times. It set the scene with twanging guitar, snatches of keys, and a tight noise-guitar solo.

Tempo ramped up as the droning riffage of Don’t You Evah presented one of the night’s slinkier highlights. It helped that the band are coming off arguably the best album of their career in 2022’s Lucifer on the Sofa, as the following one-two punch of Wild and The Hardest Cut demonstrated. They’re the album’s two best cuts, and The Hardest Cut captured Spoon at its rambunctious blues rock best, with its sliding pre-chorus riff being one of the band’s greatest guitar moments. Wild saw frontman Britt Daniel’s grizzled vocal soaring in one of his best moments in a night full of them. The high point was doubtlessly the cover of John Lennon’s Isolation, an amplified take that eclipsed the original performance and likely made some do a double take to check if an apparition of Lennon hadn’t somehow materialised onstage.

Two other clever inclusions were Nefarious and The Fitted Shirt, two early Spoon tracks performed with the help of original band member Wendel Stivers. Both were excellent picks, and it was great to hear the primordial musical elements of early Spoon interpreted by a much older and wiser band. Nefarious suffered from slightly muddy vocals, but it was only obvious given how perfect the sound balance was otherwise, with the vocals finely balanced against guitars that cut through just right.

Other highlights included The Underdog, which featured a more organ-heavy and garagey sound on stage, and the funky and tightly-wound grooves of I Turn My Camera On. The best was reserved for last, with the huge, stompy Rent I Pay closing the show. Britt’s vocals once again soared, and the band played off each other with a controlled looseness that would’ve made The Rolling Stones proud. It capped off what was one of the finest rock performances in Perth this year.

As The War on Drugs came on stage and hit their first notes, it felt like being transported to a different time. The band’s success is an interesting cultural phenomenon, as Adam Granduciel’s outfit have built a singular and immediately recognisable sound that has somehow managed to repurpose 80s heartland rock and AOR pop (Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Phil Collins) for a modern age by injecting a heavy dose of shoegaze and psychedelia. Many 80s-indebted bands borrow that era’s synthy sounds, but the attitude remains tongue-in-cheek. Not so with the War on Drugs, who wear their hearts on their sleeves and go straight for the jugular with a sweeping and downright epic sound. It would risk sounding overbearing if it weren’t so good.

The band opened with the quietly building keyboard arpeggios of Old Skin, a great choice of opening track that started slow and slowly built to a crescendo. Adam and friends basked in a wall of sound that would define the set, their hair windswept during a downright cinematic opening. They looked every bit ready for an arena show, their expansive sound carried by Adam on guitar and accompaniment from two keyboards, bass/drums, up to two guitars, and alto sax at pivotal moments. Multiple instrument switches showed the meticulousness that went into crafting these live sounds. Early number Pain was pristine, balancing finely captured acoustic guitar against massive piano chords. It also featured one of many keystone guitar moments from the night. The band’s guitar sound is particularly striking, using Roland amps and stacking on the reverb, flange, and phaser effects to achieve a soundscape that sounds like the metallic guitar sounds of the eighties put through a lysergic ringer. Adam uses it as a weapon, as he unleashed a powerful solo here. It was one of many. Later cut Strangest Thing played like an extended solo and then segued into modern classic Harmonia’s Dream, whose fast pace and refrain of “I’m in a rollin’ wave” had the crowd singing and dancing along.

The alto sax was a pleasant surprise and a great accompaniment on every track it featured, often favouring a mid-range that rode the tidal wave of sound. Fan favourite An Ocean Upon the Waves had a mighty reception and ended with a beautiful solo, but it was later on in Eyes to the Wind where the band really cut loose. Adam let loose with some mighty harmonica licks before making way for an extended sax coda that was truly heavenly.

All the other tracks were equally epic. The idea of catharsis in music and live performance should probably be used sparingly, yet The War on Drugs are one of the few bands that can get away with making each song a spiritual experience. Red Eyes garnered a massive reaction as the band’s most beloved track. Kings Park wisely decided to open up the front stage with a dancefloor rather than seating, and it let the crowd let loose and dance with reckless abandon. Under the Pressure is a crowd and personal favourite, and it also captured that song’s beautiful kosmiche-influenced glory, with Adam’s vocal more impassioned than on record with a sterling, aggressive finish. 2021’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore is a set of beautifully epic yet catchy tracks, and I Don’t Wanna Wait, Living Proof, and I Don’t Live Here Anymore all came off excellently live, with the latter capturing the original’s vocal harmonies very well. The only knock against the tracklist would have been the front-loading of the band’s latest three (out of six total) albums. An earlier track like Comin’ Through would have been good to hear repurposed on the night.

While the band’s latest material saw the runtime of the studio tracks shortened, the band showed its commitment to an epic live experience by finishing on Thinking of a Place. One of their longest and slowest builds, it came off beautifully live and laid the bedrock for some great solos from Adam, his guitar squalling in a manner reminiscent of guitar hero Tom Verlaine. As a final journey, it was a beautiful one that carried the night to an end atop waves of synth and guitar arpeggios. Like a wave, it built and crashed, and as a wave retreats into the sea, so did the band as the lights finally came, leaving a bleary-eyed crowd to make sense of a night of ascendant music.

MATIJA ZIVKOVIC

Photos by Linda Dunjey