Entertainment For Lively Minds
Spiritualized
Posted by DogFacedBoy on 12 October 2011 - 12:09pm.
When:
11th October 2011
Where:
Royal Albert Hall, London
Comments:
Jason Pierce enters, high kicks, grabs the mic, puts one foot on the monitor and screams "Ello, London, let's rock this place, yeah?" and continues to dance his arse off for the next two hours. No, of course not. He shuffles on, sunnies fixed in place. Sits of the right facing across stage. And plays some new. A lot of it. 80 minutes of new album whose incompleteness has led to all but a couple of dates being moved to next year. Its hard to take in all those new songs ("Its Spiritualized, how different can it be?" says a wag at the back) but its clearly more melodic and commercial than recent material. An encore of more familiar material follows but nothing from 1997 's "Ladies & Gents". Very much a gig of two thirds and a third, Brian
The Audience:
Patient but enthusiastic. Beards a plenty, stoner types and unhappy girlfriends scowling through the sonic attack of feedback. same as it ever was. Got a 'standing O' at the end of the night.
Food & Drink:
some RAH branded water at £2 a pop. Tasted very Victorian
It Made Me Think...:
Any casual admirers and fans of LAGWAFIS would have gone away pissed off but I admire the balls of playing all new stuff. Oh and never sit on far right at Spiritualized gigs unless you like the back of Jason's head
Some New
Sounds promising, I'd just about given up on anything interesting from Spiritualized after their last few dirgathons. And I used to love this band insanely.
They lost me with
'Let it Come Down'.
I prefer them sans orchestra/choir, they don't need it. They can fill a room perfectly well with just the garage band version with the Farfisa organ droning away.
I was initally unimpressed
during the first half hour due to the sludgy sound quality and lack of familiar songs. I couldn't even hear the orchesta or choir that filled the stage (I think someone counted 52 people on stage, including Romeo from The Magic Numbers on banjo). Once the sound problems and been fixed and I'd mentally adjusted to the idea idea that the set was going to be the new album in full, it really kicked-off for me. The new songs were great - the final track before the encore for example is certainly among the best things the band have ever done. Can't wait to hear the album. A fantastic encore - Shine a Light and Take me to The Other Side were ear-meltingly powerful. Bringing the full choir and orchestra back for the final number Oh Happy Day made me leave the venue charged, euphoric and well ... spiritualized.
Oh so it wasn't just me
for whom the sound was pants for first few songs? Didn't want to say this in case I was just in shite seats
Memories
I couldn't help comparing it to RAH 97, such a tough act to follow. I sat in almost exactly the same spot, the last 14 years have just flown by; it would have been nice to have had the career retrospective and it was a bit disheartening to see so many empty seats when it was packed to the rafters back then, but Jason has moved on, he doesn't do sentimentality. The new album sounds really promising, it would have been nice to have known the songs though. At least they played Shine A Light, such a beautiful song, so cathartic -it's wonderful the way the band break out of musical chaos into that slow, graceful intro, I've never heard anyone else do that the way Spiritualized do.