Two years ago, Spiritualized reprised their bestselling (one might say "only major") 1997 album, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, in the curiously titled concert series, Don't Look Back. Since then, their frontman (one might say "only notable band member") Jason "Spaceman" Pierce has been constantly promising new material, along with persistent assurances that the band's (would-be) seventh album will hearken back to the glory days of yester-millennium and also have a more-than-usual inclination toward pop. The oft-postponed release is now slated, it seems, for March; but last night, at the Albert Hall, Spiritualized finally unveiled their work-in-progress.
Well, it was unlikely that Pierce ever meant "pop", in the Spice Girls sense of the word; but certainly their opening number, "Hey Jane" (we're working on trust with these titles), was, shall we say, chipper... by the band's own wall-of-sound fiery-rapture standards. Pierce had a shoulder-twitching back-up trio, sure enough, but he also had a substantial cohort of string players, a wind section, and a choir at least 20 strong - to say nothing of the actual band (four guitarists, drummer, keyboards, and occasional mouth organ). And this "pop" opener lasted at least seven or eight minutes. Thereafter it was business pretty much as usual.
The sound of Spiritualized is self-defining: it makes you think of nothing else but Spiritualized
All the familiar elements were there, both in the lyrics - about Jesus, and love, and "choking back the tears" - and in the sound. The sound of Spiritualized is self-defining: it makes you think of nothing else but Spiritualized. Which is to say (er...), a sort of Kentucky bluegrass as interpreted by Oasis, or Screamadelica with industrial quantities of metal thrown in. Depending. (Their northernness is not generally emphasised; but it's worth knowing they were last out the door at the Hacienda.)
With upwards of 50 people on stage, sung through the dry ice, "Little Girl" was a reminder that in any given Spiritualized song there is a blanket acceptance that they might, as a unit, go off the reservation for at least five minutes, the second (or third, or fourth) repeat of a refrain frequently hiving off into a self-contained movement of its own. Many songs worked around the band's hymnic revivalist stock-in-trade (why have one chorus when 25 would do?); others built into towering tone poems which seemed perpetually on the verge of implosion. Several traded on a proselytising "Freedom is yours if you want it" blues philosophy and/or ironical folksy wisdom ("Don't play with fire/ You'll never get burned"); but at least one - "Life is a Problem" - was stripped down until it bordered almost on Celtic song. Later items included a song with a kind of "Break on Through" bossa nova underlay, and one (which featured a seemingly improbable refrain around the words "sexy boy") even got its bad self halfway to funkytown. But there were the dark anthems, too, like "Mary", and even the occasional heartbreaking lullaby, as sung to a newborn by a man who's considering being gone by morning.
But Spiritualized - live, or on disc - don't really operate on a track-by-track basis. Their albums tend to be "growers". (Ladies and Gentlemen... is, not coincidentally, the exception), and whether or not you find yourself worked into a state of pseudo-religious ecstasy, their music is intended to be experienced as a substantial event, not trotted out in three-minute bursts (ask your friends to name their favourite Spiritualized single and see how long that conversation lasts).
For my money, the problem was the uninterrupted stream of new material
The problem with this kind of music at a live gig, though, especially when you don't know the songs, is that, no matter how big it gets, it's never what you'd call jump-around stuff. Looking down from my vantage point, I could see a little rapt swaying in the front few rows, but that was about it. The cavernous venue wasn't helping but, for my money, the problem was the uninterrupted stream of new material.
If familiarity with Spiritualized songs is rewarded, the corollary is that there's only so much new stuff you can hear in the course of an evening. The crowd began to get restive when, on several occasions, they were wrong-footed by what one might ungenerously call the band's tendency to thematic recycling, certain opening chords (no doubt mischievously chosen) making them think they were getting one of the old classics, when in fact they were getting, as the Irish might put it, one of the new classics they just didn't know yet.
It's a fine line, and it runs parallel to what may have been the other problem of the evening. I've always liked the fact that Pierce sits throughout his gigs. It's in keeping with the music, and shows a certain quiet control, as well as demonstrating that he doesn't need to resort to cheap theatrics, or even common or garden rockstar grandstanding. That said, it might have been a good idea to introduce the songs. Or even just say "Hi." Impressive as it can be to play it cool, on this occasion I felt Spiritualized under-did it, and in the circs it was frankly risky leaving it as long as they did before coming back on for the encores. Even then, they didn't exactly crack on: by the time they got to the barn-burners like "Take Me to the Other Side" a lot of the crowd had begun to lose interest.