TCB

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Cherries Jubilee

Keeping a secret in Austin is hard enough as it is, but when it's a word-of-mouth Spoon show, it's flat-out impossible. By the time the local quartet took the Trophy's stage last Tuesday as Cherries Etc, the place was predictably packed. As Adoniram Lipton and Underwood warmed up, half of Austin and Interpol singer Paul Banks filed in to watch the group preview songs from May's Merge LP, Gimme Fiction. "Welcome to our secret show," deadpanned frontman Britt Daniel (pictured) after methodical opener "The Beast and Dragon Adored." Fiction's "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine," "The Delicate Place," and "Sister Jack" also cropped up, falling somewhere between the well-scrubbed pop of 2001's Girls Can Tell and the pricklier stream of-consciousness missives off '02's Kill the Moonlight. Daniel was in good spirits for the hourlong set, honoring a shouted-out request for "Car Radio," even if the stifling heat caused him to sit down during the valedictory "The Way We Get By." "I'm fucking dead," concurred sweat-soaked drummer Jim Eno afterward. Why choose the gritty South Congress dive to shake off the cobwebs? "I wanted to play somewhere nobody knew about," insisted Daniel while waiting in line for Interpol the next night. Better luck next time.