Spoon finds the right temperature at warehouse show

Spoon's show Monday night at Little Radio's downtown Los Angeles warehouse space was a lot like an exhilarating day at the gym: If you took care of business, it was a good sweat.

With the brick oven that doubles as the Internet radio station's headquarters packed, the Austin quartet bobbed and weaved through 82 sweltering minutes of music, much of it from "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," the new album that reaffirms Spoon's station at the vanguard of this decade's indie rock. It's music that makes demands -- it's nothing if not insistent -- and refuses to succumb to any excesses.

On Monday night, the warehouse setting made its own demands. Front man Britt Daniel kept the show -- for certain first-day buyers of the album as well as guests of the sponsors and assorted hipsterati -- motoring along banterless for most of the evening. Fans who stationed themselves near the stage early were rewarded; those who stayed near the front of the space chatting up their friends until set time struggled to get a good view. You schmooze, you lose. Or get a ticket to the September gig at the Fonda.

But an hour in, after the heat had thinned the throngs, Spoon came on strongest. When Daniel delivered the chorus to "The Beast and Dragon, Adored," it felt like a moment of truth: "I got a feelin it don't come cheap / I got a feelin oh and then it came to me / It took its time a-working into my soul / I got to believe it come from rock and roll."

Photos of Britt Daniel, top, and the crowd, below, by Timothy Norris. More at Little Radio's website.