It pays to have influential friends. First White Rabbits acquire the production skills of Britt Daniel for second album It’s Frightening, then the Spoon frontman invites them on tour. But with a well-oiled hype machine currently pushing the band, Daniel’s patronage seems superfluous, White Rabbits likely capable of filling Tuts without their mentor’s help. They fly through their 45 minutes like a more forcefully percussive Cold War Kids, with up to half the sextet fervently bashing out paradiddles at any one time, and while it feels a touch over-familiar, it firmly cements their talents.
There are Rabbits accompanying the headliners too, intermittently
assisting their esteemed touring partners on drums and keys. “Oh my gawd!” screeches a North American voice nearby, “no one knows anything! I’m the only one that knows them!” Her smug protest (if not, alas, her voice box) is rendered mute by the cheers greeting every song’s opening bars, with particularly warm receptions reserved for Way We Get By and Don’t Make Me A Target. But she has a partial point – the veteran college-rockers (now sixteen years young) probably don’t play to such immobile crowds very often, particularly not State-side where their profile is higher. If anything, their audience is less tightly-packed than their support’s - a sign that newcomer buzz often trumps consistency. What Spoon’s longevity does permit, however, is a 90 minute filler-free set, and the joyous friction of a varied, evolving back catalogue. It’s something for their Brooklyn-based brethren to aspire to.
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