Artist: Spiritulized
Venue: Maida Vale, London (BBC6Music 10th Birthday)
Date: 15th March 2012
Before proceedings even kicked off I was already awestruck by the hallowed grounds of Maida Vale. The likes of The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have all enriched the legacy of this fabled set of studios. This awe transpired into something else as the BBC press officer introduced me to the rest of the guys he was doing hospitality for, including Didz Hammond of Dirty Pretty Things fame.
So idolisation aside, Spritualized came in to a rampant audience from the off, playing a mix of hits and new songs. The group fronted by J. Spaceman, or Jason Pierce to his mates, stormed into an epic and soulful set of psychedelic inspired soulful tunes.
Pierce has always been a tough nut to crack. Letting his music do the talking. Although Pierce has always denied writing songs inspired by his own chaotic life (he once had a whole several hour argument with NME discussing how a certain lyric wasn’t about drugs), it’s not hard to infer pieces of autobiography within his songs and their relation to big events in his life. For instance he died twice officially after a bout of pneumonia in 2005 and went on to write ‘Songs in A&E’.
Pierce was as distant as usual, hiding behind his trademark sunglasses for much of the set, hiding his emotion and didn’t say anything to the audience between songs, as is his way. His razored voice and caustic musical jams doing the talking for him. Hypnotic simple guitar from Pierce layered over complex solo riffs from John Coxon making modernised hymns for tortured souls.
Opener, new song ‘Hey Jane’ is probably the most positive record Piece has made, a simple guitar riff on a four minute pop song that suddenly breaks down at the end to turn the song into an 8 minute epic with a gloriously bitter sweet coda.
The two other new songs ‘Little Girl’ and ‘I Am What I Am’ are similarly optimistic, embracing an ever so slightly poppier feel that Pierce has talked about the new album ‘Sweet Heart, Sweet Light’ having.
The band also performed ‘Lord let It Rain On Me’ which is probably one of the most beautiful sad songs put to tape, the intimate setting elevating the song into something magical. ‘Come Together’ sounded so much heavier than the album with Pierce’s tripped out but venomous delivery of the words (which had so many profanity’s the BBC were forced to issue a offhand apology) where host Lauren Laverne stated “but who didn’t enjoy that”, Indeed that’s true Mrs Laverne!
Spiritualized Played
- Hey Jane
- Lord Let It Rain On Me
- Little Girl
- She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)
- I Am What I Am
- Come Together
Photo Credits: Mark Allan/BBC
