Live Review: Spiritualized & Lost Animal

When the plus one says, “Is that Lost Animal?” we hurry down the stairs and into a mostly empty Hi-Fi Bar to catch his set. Mr Animal, Jarrod Quarrell, is in a foul mood and bemoans every glitch, foldback monitor, and lighting or smoke effect. It's a shame because there's a fair amount of suspension of disbelief involved in experiencing Lost Animal live – much of the instrumentation is via backing track – so even though his music is fucking incredible, a cranky Quarrell almost makes you wonder why you bothered turning up. Shags Chamberlain and Luke Horton plus some bloke on drums bring some life to the thing but it's far from Lost Animal's finest set.

Spiritualized spark off in fairly understated fashion via the nonetheless striking Here It Comes. J Spaceman (who also answers to Jason Pierce) is seated onstage with a couple of backing singers behind him and the rest of the band diagonally opposite. The backing singers are straight into action, but the gradual nature of the song drags the opening down ever so slightly. From here we descend and it's not until 15 minutes have past that it's apparent we're in the guts of Hey Jane (only the second 'song' in) and things are getting intense.

The visuals tell a huge part of the story here and, through the elongated psychedelic passages between songs, the room is drenched in a blood red with apocalyptic loops playing across a screen. For effect, we're bathed in blue and white light through the 'lighter' passages in what feels like an arm wrestle for the souls of the room. You get the impression the sunglasses and seated Mr Spaceman (and the impersonator behind us who's maintaining nobody will block his view despite his position at the back) is pulling the strings – playing god. The band exit the stage after what feels like only three or four songs due to a technical glitch and all momentum (and there is a lot of it) is lost.

After the break, Freedom is a weak restart and it takes a good 20 minutes to rebuild what the exodus has destroyed. Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is gigantic but all too bright. Two songs later, the thing gets its groove back and the room bathes in blood again. The thrust is lost once more through Christian (sounding) love song Perfect Miracle but they power through to the death of the main set with some driving psych.

The encore brings a couple of Spacemen 3 covers, which do little to drag the room into the slimy hell they had threatened to earlier create, and though Smiles brings glimpses of the apocalypse we'd been waiting for, it's just not there. Spiritualized tragics will defy every word written here, but J Spaceman treads a delicate line where the illusion he creates could well become delusion. There's no doubt this is a fine performance but it's what he and his disciples believe it all means that's frightening.