An open letter to the girl directly to my left at the Spoon show, the girl who REALLY loves “The Way We Get By”:

Dear You,
It is clear to me and to Spoon that you really love "The Way We Get By," and who doesn’t, really. It’s bouncy and fun with lyrics about being young and dumb. It’s a good song. Your love for it is clear because for each of the last 6 songs you screamed "Play ‘The Way We Get By!’"
There’s something you need to know, though, and perhaps you already do. This is their biggest song, and it’s about 6 years old, so if they’re going to perform their biggest and most well-known song, it will probably be in the encore. You certainly don’t need to ask for it.
Before I go on, there’s a story I want to tell you about a band called Band of Horses. (Cute name, huh?) Anyway, Band of Horses also have a song like this. It’s called "The Funeral," and you’ve probably heard it, even if you don’t know it! Band of Horses are actually a great band who have composed some phenomenal music (jammy, sad, earnest – you’d probably like them.) Anyway, at a show at the Bowery Ballroom, they were unimpressed with their crowd, who were completely not into the show (which is something no one would ever accuse you of being LOL.) The crowd lit up, however, when they started to play "The Funeral," even raising up their cellphones to get pictures. This pissed off lead singer Ben Bridwell, who admonished the audience for only coming to hear one song. Which is pretty rude, I think. But I kind of understand.
I bet you know where I’m going with this. As you now know, Spoon did not play "The Way We Get By" for you, even in the encore. Maybe they’re just sick of playing it every night for 6 years. But maybe it’s because of you. To them, you might as well have been shouting "Play the song from that commercial!" or "Play the song that was on The O.C. one time!" When you request the only song that everybody knows, you sound like you don’t know any of their other songs, and that could piss a band off, you know? It even pissed me off a little, because I wanted to hear them play the songs that they wanted to play. (Sorry, but it’s true.) You wouldn’t go to a Macy Gray show and request "I Try," would you? Or a Chumbawamba concert and request "Tubthumping." (OK, now I’m just being silly.)
Anyway, I shot you a sideways glance when the show was done, and you looked like you had a good time, so I’m happy that you enjoyed Spoon, despite the snub. They’re really a great band. But as a rule of thumb, if you’re at a show and you want to request a song-which you shouldn’t even do, since they already have a set list-try and see if you can figure out what their most popular and well-known song is. Now don’t request that song.