Paperjam

Spiritualized at Camden Koko, May 2008

Gigs // Jim // 21st May 2008

Most bands would wait for the encore, before indulging in some kind of huge, grandstanding, free-form, jazz oddysey, white noise explosion. Spiritualized have managed to hold out for just about four minutes. After blasting through You Lie You Cheat everything goes completely crazy. The backing singers keep things going, somehow maintaining a rhythm in the face of all sorts of guitar torturing histrionics.

As things build to some kind of tinnitus inducing crescendo, a curtain falls and a backdrop draped in silver is revealed, the lights kick in and the band cut straight into the swooning opening of Shine A Light. It is magical, if I had more to drink I would probably weep.

There is a video on YouTube (see below) of this being played at Glastonbury several years ago, probably one of the finest bits of live musical footage you will ever see - but it doesn’t come close to what I am experiencing pinned between a bunch of trendy indie types in Camden’s very own Koko at this precise moment. The song builds, the crowd is absolutely transfixed, the organ winds up and the singers are wailing along with an insistent sounding Jason Pierce, who seems an awfully long way from death’s door. "In rude health" would be a better description.

Half an hour ago, after arriving and getting hold of a pint, I started muscling my way as subtly as I could through the packed crowd. Realised that Koko really isn’t that big a place and settled in about halfway towards the stage in front of where Pierce and the singers are now set up.

I was expecting the full enchillada of strings, brass and gospel choir, but the set up is just the main band plus the four singers. This seems to me like it should be suited to the sonic-assault, garage-rock tracks, but not the lush epics. As if to prove that I do indeed know absolutely fuck all, the band then plough through a lush, epic rendition of Lord Let It Rain On Me followed by the garage-assault of Cheapster. Both are completely spot on, the force and volume of the band lending what some would describe as more marginal elements of the Spiritualized canon absolute authority and poise.

A minor bit of noodling leads into the deceptively hushed introduction of the new single Soul On Fire, oh I absolutely love this. A few weeks back I wrote that this song has the sort of chorus that Noel Gallagher would have happily sold his cock to have come up with. I wonder if Noel is here right now in one of Koko’s little balconies that the proles aren’t allowed in. I wonder if he is holding a sharp blade to his nether regions with one hand and using the other to sign a deal with the devil. Hearing Soul On Fire in the flesh, he might have to throw in an eyebrow too.

The set flits around the whole Spaceman back catalogue, through Walking With Jesus, Let It Flow (where the ladies at the back really come into their own), stuff off the new album like Sitting On Fire and more Amazing Grace-ness in the form of She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit).

Everyone is clapping as the twangy opening of Take Your Time rings out, it gradually contorts from minimal guitar plucking into an absolute monster of a performance, the band seem to be wringing every last space-rock decibel out of the venue. “You know I’ve been thinking about not coming down”, yells Pierce, no-one could blame him.

I can’t see how it could get much better than this, but I should really learn to be more optimistic as pounding drums announce the opening of stone cold classic Come Together. Little Johnny might be sad, fucked and all messed up but I am going to have grin fatigue in the morning.

My favourite version of this song is the live version on the complete works, I hope that someone is recording this tonight as it is amazing. I’m as happy as a pig who has just taken advantage of the credit crunch to successfully put in a ridiculously low offer on a highly desirable pile of shit in zone 1.

The final song is all chiming guitars and lyrics about getting through to the other side, I don’t know it, could be off the forthcoming album. Either way it all goes absolutely mental at the end and the crowd lap it up before the band depart offering applause of their own to the audience.

Guitar technicians buzz around the stage in that way that they do before Spiritualized are back to tease us with more minor pissing about before settling into I Think I’m In Love, probably the ultimate example of “been dumped, working on my smack habit while putting myself down in a call and response fashion” song-writing - for my money at least.

Things are wrapped up with a grandiose Lord Can You Hear Me, before the band offer the audience more applause and troop off, cheered by a crowd that they have kept happy all night.

You know the moment when you make your girlfriend come? I mean really come, a genuine moaning, groaning, eye-rolling, shuddering, actually-taking-her-eyes-off-Eastenders orgasm? The feeling that you get when you do that, knowing that you have caused that much pleasure and bliss - that must be what it is like to be in Spiritualized, just on a much grander scale, with a lot more effort and loads more noise. A bit like wanking off an elephant - but in a good way.

It’s not much hassle getting out of Koko, then I luck my way almost straight onto a bus heading towards Finsbury Park and the curry house/hotel that I am stopping in tonight.

A couple on the bus have managed to get hold of the set list, I ask if they know what the last song in the main set was, they reckon it might have been a cover as the bearded half of the partnership assures me that it isn’t on the new album and isn’t an existing Spiritualized or Spaceman 3 track. He doesn’t reckon it seemed very Jason Pierce either, “Well apart from sounding like it was about drugs?” I query. They laugh, but give the clear impression that the conversation is now over. Fair enough.

Get back to the hotel to find out that two ladies in their early twenties have been let into my room by mistake.

Which seems like it should be the start of a really interesting story.

But somehow isn’t.

Ladies and Gentlemen These Links Are Floating In Cyberspace

Actually, The Last Song Was...

Take Me To The Other Side, an old Spaceman 3 track, you can stream it from the above link.

Spiritualized Official site

Probably the best designed band website going, loads of stuff on here.

Spiritualized MySpace

Currently got the whole new album available for listening