Playing your landmark album in its entirety seems to be the cool thing to do these days (reunions are SO 2008) but if they’re all delivered with such loving care as Spiritualized’s recitation of late-90’s classic “Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space” there’s little cause for complaint. J. Spaceman may be as static a frontman as ever, but augmented with 2 guitarists, a keyboardist, a bassist, two percussionists, 6 brass players, a string octet and 12 members of the London Community Choir the music is anything but. The wondrously dreamy space-pop of the title track is delivered with such spine-tingling intensity it literally takes the breath away, even outshining Come Together’s stirring gospel-heavy refrain. Like the album, there are moments that don’t really go anywhere- Jason Pierce isn’t the most sophisticated of songwriters, either lyrically or melodically- but they’re more than made up for by the likes of Electricity, whose brutal assault is accompanied by such apocalyptically intense strobe lighting I started seeing colours that weren’t really there. Shame the sound isn’t quite as good in the balcony as one might hope, but not even that can mute the immense power of a 20-minute Cop Shoot Cop, complete with an extended noise wig-out that pushes the limits of the less hardy connoisseur (personally, I fucking loved it). An excellent, at times tremendous performance, it lacked the consistency to be a true gig-of-the-year contender but despite its flaws it’s an experience I most definitely wouldn’t mind repeating come December.
(Photo: Littlepants (Flickr))
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