Spoon gets fans off the sofa and to the Palladium for a thrilling victory lap

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Spoon at the Palladium (Photo by Michelle Shiers)

By JEFF MILLER

Over the past two decades or so, veteran indie-rock band Spoon has quietly (but, like, sorta loudly, if judging by distorted guitar volume) become one of the most consistent bands of their ilk. Unlike contemporaries like Arcade Fire or Vampire Weekend, they haven’t really changed their core sound, a chunky, propellant often one-chord drive that lends itself to frontman Britt Daniel’s raspy-but-assured voice, and at the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday night, they reasserted their status as the most reliable game in town.

The band’s new album, “Lucifer On The Sofa,” is shockingly great for a band that’s on their 10th full-length, and it’s clear from their onstage camaraderie they’re treating this tour like a victory lap. From the opening song, “My Babe” (here far more high-energy than the slow-burn album version) to the set-closing, long-retired “The Mystery Zone” (a cut from their oft-overlooked 2010 release “Transference”), there was no question of the band’s conviction. Where once singer Daniel performed with almost a passive sarcasm, now he’s delivering the same songs with intense, swaggy earnestness, leaning into the rock ’n’ roll persona he sings about on “The Beast And The Dragon, Adored” rather than rolling his eyes at it.

Of course, they played the hits. Spoon is one of those bands that has way more songs you probably know through osmosis than you think, and those cuts — “The Underdog,” “I Turn My Camera On,” “The Way We Get By” and others — all still sound like perfect high-school montage moments from the mid-2000s on, singalongs that are somewhat approaching nostalgia for the cool-kids crowd whose own cool kids probably were being watched by babysitters Thusrday night.

The emotional highlight, for obvious reasons, was a cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation,” with Daniel and multi-instrumentalist Alex Fischel playing through the first verse and chorus before the rest of the band joined in. It was a direct metaphor for the reentry into society we’ve all experienced in the year — as straightforward as it comes, with just a minor, subtle eyebrow-raise hidden behind the curtain.

Jeff Miller is an L.A.-based journalist and musician.

Photos by Michelle Shiers