Spiritualized
Live at Leeds Metropolitan University on Thursday, 22nd January 2004
18 months ago, Spiritualized were headlining one of the tents at Roskilde and I was in real trouble - the emotion pouring out of Jason Pierce and his crew was having a massive effect on my tear glands, and sitting down sobbing at how wonderful things were seemed the only option. Nothing like that happened at the slightly less atmospheric Students' Union at Leeds Met, but what we do see is a quality 115 minutes light and sound spectacular. Significantly, at no stage does this set drag, which is no mean feat given the length of the songs. Set opener "Electricity" begins proceedings and it's 21 mins on the clock before song 3 finishes. At this stage, someone shouts out "Say summat Jason". As you'd expect, no word is forthcoming, as there is intense concentrating to be done. The newer material doesn't stray massively from the normal, but there are signs of Flaming Lip influences and the Lemmy era Hawkwind bassing is as prominent as ever, as is the nagging 2 chord keyboards from beyond Pluto. Bloody great. In between "Don't Just Do Something" and "Home Of The Brave" there is time for some Spacemen 3 tunes, the finest being "So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears)" - this is played extremely slowly and is extremely lovely. Followers "Out Of Sight" and "Broken Heart" are as knife through the throat sad as they can be. Large gulps can be heard throughout the venue. Then, all of a sudden, people start to sway and the smiles are broader than ever, as a gob droppingly ace 12 minute version of "I Think I'm In Love" is played. The ending song that follows is as close as the needle on the sonic cathedral-ometer breaking right off as it can be - it's 15 minutes or so of drone, noise and release. At its conclusion, the band leave the stage waving to the crowd, leaving Jason on his own. He looks overawed by the reaction, and simply says "thanks" into the mic, stands up and applauds the crowd for a long, long time; his work now complete.
