Live Review: Spiritualized & Lost Animal

Opening proceedings tonight is Jarrod Quarrell's (ex-St Helens) solo project Lost Animal. Performing at the helm of a keyboard with a bass player to his side, Quarrell is marred by the odd bit of feedback and the dullness of a near-empty room. Both music and performance do too little in the face of this desolation, and unfortunately fail to ever connect in any real way.

It's a slow come on for Spiritualized, who open with the obscure piece Here it Comes. Guitar in hand J Spaceman sits, hiding behind shades, with both a keyboard and an abundance of pedals at his reach. Aside from two backing-singers who alternate on and off the stage, the band of seven remains quite restrained in their movement throughout. The room is now filled by an audience that respond with attentive intrigue, and by the time second song Hey Jane reaches its mid-point explosion, intrigue translates to sheer bedazzlement. An immensity of sound spews forth and this is heightened by a visual display which bathes both screen and stage in a marvellous concoction of psychedelic imagery. Electricity and Headin' For The Top Now follow on from their predecessor's explosive mid-section, before Freedom brings things back to a more measured pace. This juxtaposition of measure and mayhem continues on and becomes a potent fix of their set. Many respond with delight when the opening spoken sample announces Ladies And Gentlemen We're Floating In Space, and all are rewarded with an extended version which draws out the bitter-sweet sentiment to devastating effect. So Long You Pretty Thing and the unreleased 'A' Song deliver more delights, before Take Your Time and Electric Mainline bring the set to a climactic close.

When they return to the stage they pay homage to the past with the Spacemen 3 covers Come Down Easy and Walking With Jesus. Both efforts seem a little lacklustre in light of the glimpses of transcendence which preceded them, however, their contrast acts as a calm to amplify the storm. And what a storm Smiles becomes! With this, their final song, Spiritualized unleash a final immensity of sound – one that is usually reserved only for legend. Yet they do it here and now with a wall of sound which is so menacing that it seemingly threatens to dislocate bodies from standard time and space, leaving consciousness swirling in its wake. And thus the Spiritualized moment becomes complete.