Spiritualized @ The Roadmender, Northampton, September 2003

Inspired by the White Stripes, and a more direct approach to recording, the Spaceman took his unique chunk of spacerock direct to Northampton Roadmender. Natasha House has the details

My eyes throb and fight intermittent blindness as I struggle to make out Jason Pierce’s silhouette, perfectly profiled against a blazing spotlight, adding a visual spectacle to the soaring space-rock psychedelia Spiritualized calmly lead us through. The Spaceman himself remains seated precariously atop an amp, face screened from us with his turned body as he cradles a guitar in his lap and pours out his aching heart through vocals, first gruff and then gentle, almost fragile.

I have to admit to being ever-so-slightly under-whelmed the first time I saw Spiritualized, and I thought it was just because the cavernous Brixton Academy seemed to swallow Pierce body and soul beneath his soaring orchestral barrage of sound. But standing just a few metres from him at the cosier Roadmender, I find the venue irrelevant. The guarded self-affront with which he takes to the stage is characteristic of this, most understated of rock stars.

Tracks from new album Amazing Grace feature heavily in the set, but the hardcore ambience and carolling rock grandeur of previous efforts shines through. Towering, emotionally heavy and frequently dischordant statements of heartbreak and love in equal proportions, Spiritualized songs are no easy ride. And the louder JP gets the less he seems to enjoy it, straining into the mic with his curious semi-American drawl.

Quieter moments such as ‘Hold On’ off Amazing Grace blast the rock songs out of the water in terms of emotional intensity, but all the while I can’t help feeling the Spaceman is unwilling or perhaps unable to level with us. If his aim is to recreate the pain of a drug-addled past and sincere desires for redemption while remaining mysteriously aloof, he succeeded. ‘Lord let it rain on me, let it all come down, sell my soul and let it roll, and I’m about ready now,’ he sings on the gospel-tinged ‘Lord Let It Rain.’ But for some reason I’m not sure his heart’s in it.

Set List