music

Twin Cities music hipsters had a tough choice Wednesday night: Wilco and Spoon had gigs in town. As it turned out, though, fans could have made both shows.

These two critically lauded, cult-loved, decade-old bands have many similarities. They were dropped by a Warner Bros.-owned major label but went on to great indie success; they spent this past summer playing the big festivals; they even had the same manager for a short while.

They both gave spectacular performances Wednesday, too, but their approaches were wildly different.

Wilco at Northrop

"My voice just gets better every night," Jeff Tweedy said after delivering a faux soul-singer falsetto in "Too Far Apart."

The Wilco frontman was totally kidding, as he did throughout his band's playful two-hour set, its first time at Northrop Auditorium. But he really did seem to be singing better than ever during the first half of the show, which started on a mellow note with the folkishly retooled opener "Sunken Treasure" and the new gems "You Are My Face" and "Side With the Seeds."

Tweedy's boyish voice seemed emboldened by Northrop's acoustics, which he praised over the previous night's "in a bunker" show in Milwaukee. During the second half, he also showed off his growing courage as a guitar player and arranger, which Wilco's twice-altered lineup has given him over the past couple years.

As with the band's chilly outdoor show in Duluth last month, the highlights of Wednesday's show could have gotten Tweedy and Co. mistaken for a jam band. The back-to-back, dueling jams in "Handshake Drugs" and "Impossible Germany" had the 3,000 fans cheering wildly for the shredding but purposeful guitar work by Tweedy and his new-ish ace sidekick Nels Cline.

The Chicago rockers were even more nostalgic in their one long encore, culled largely from the 1996 album "Being There." Tweedy's Golden Smog pal Gary Louris also joined in on guitar for "California Stars" -- a sweet gesture, but more guitar was the last thing the band needed.

Spoon at First Ave

Fresh from its "Saturday Night Live" appearance last weekend, Spoon came to town with an air of triumph. Its new album recently debuted in Billboard's Top 10, and its two First Avenue gigs (including another one Thursday night) teetered on selling out.

There was a noticeable (and hard-earned) swagger as the band took the stage just after 11 p.m. Wednesday. The Texas quartet confidently breezed through 22 songs in under 90 minutes. It even made the cocky gesture of putting together a set in nearly chronological order, starting with the 1998 songs "Utilitarian" and "The Minor Tough" and ending before the encore with tunes from its new disc, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga."

Unlike Wilco's show, where the guitar work was charmingly flashy and the arrangements adventurous, Spoon made a big impact with its minimalist style.

Frontman Britt Daniel didn't even use his guitar in the tunes "The Way We Get By" and "The Ghost of You Lingers," leaving the bass and piano to do all the melodic work (along with some of the rhythmic parts, Spoon's stronger side). Even some of the more guitar-driven tunes, including "The Fitted Shirt" and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," were based on simple, choppy riffs.

In fact, it was hard to pinpoint exactly what worked about Spoon's short set. But if its virtues were more overt, the band probably would've been filling First Ave long ago like Wilco did.

See set lists and fan comments at www.startribune.com/poplife.

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658

Chris Riemenschneider • chrisr@startribune.com