Spoon's new album "Transference" for sale at Starbucks; photo via my phone

"The Underdog" by Spoon

"Cryptograms" by Deerhunter

"Just In Case" by Micachu & the Shapes

Spoon, Deerhunter and Micachu & the Shapes are critic- and fan-approved heavy hitters in the worlds of indie rock and experimental pop. Their Midwest/West Coast tour is a tour de force, and stops at The Moore Theatre Friday and Saturday.

In glasses-wearing, book-reading, NPR/KEXP-listening Seattle, any of the three acts could successfully headline the concerts.

The duty falls to Spoon because the tightly grooving Austin band is mainstage indie famous — Death Cab for Cutie/Bright Eyes/Arcade Fire famous — and has a new album out, "Transference." It's Spoon's worst of seven full-lengths and a collection of EPs, and still pretty good. The band's got a big enough following to headline the Moore regardless.

Most indie rock bands in the '90s and aughts put out one or two albums and died, but Spoon had a traceable arc. Fans followed it through stark, architectural rock (the underrated "Soft Effects" EP, 1997) into something simultaneously darker and more peppy, even quasi-baroque (the flawless "Girls Can Tell" album, 2001) and eventually into an album that combined those styles, nailed a jagged swing, made hitmaking use of a horn section, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies: "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" (2007).

The single from that album, "The Underdog," was produced by Jon Brion (Kanye West, Aimee Mann) and broke through to the mainstream in much the same way "Float On" did for Modest Mouse a few years earlier. There is no comparable song on "Transference." On the album, Spoon's by-now-a-trademark tense guitar riffs and Motown-y percussion/production tics are present, but the songs — fine as they are — feel like products of spinning wheels.

Here's hoping for a career-spanning setlist at the concert.

Playing a supporting role to Spoon at the Moore is Deerhunter, an Atlanta band let by giant, gaunt, sometimes cross-dressing Bradford Cox. With Deerhunter and his solo side project Atlas Sound, Cox commands large audiences whenever he comes to Seattle. His effects-heavy guitar haze and reverb-shrouded vocal stylings could easily be the lone draw any given evening at a Capitol Hill or Ballard club.

Playing a supporting role to Deerhunter is English band Micachu & the Shapes, one of the most creative acts in the world right now. Led by young, androgynous singer/songwriter/producer Mica "Micachu" Levi, the group mixes junkyard percussion with a guitar that sounds like a ukelele and computer/sampler arrangement techniques that have more in common with hiphop than rock. Still in Seattle's memory: the band's eye-opening concert last summer at Capitol Hill Block Party.

It's unusual that such strikingly different bands would strike out together on tour, but they have, and all have lots of good songs to play.

And at $27.50 per ticket, the Spoon/Deerhunter/Micachu concerts are a relative value. Seeing each band individually — and at less attractive venues than "ol' faded glory" the Moore — would total around $50.