lauralh | I also grabbed a set list

How I got into Spiritualized:

I wake most mornings with a head full of mush, and soft-ish music helps. I'm talking ambient/lounge, not adult rock. In what was probably an early morning in late '05 or early '06, someone posted some space rock stuff on a music weblog, and I listened to, for the first time by choice, Spiritualized. "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" sounds really good on headphone, and I probably listened to it about four more times. (You may remember it from the end of Vanilla Sky.)

Well from there, really, there was no turning back. First three albums, devoured. Live at Royal Albert Hall, commuting music for a month. Oh, and what's this? Spacemen 3? Yes please, thank you very much. Repeat till even Reg is sick of them...

Reg actually had tried to get me into them before, but unfortunately the timing was messed up. He told me 3 things I recall about the concert he saw just before he and I began dating:
1)

toddv's girlfriend threw up from the loudness of the show
2) Jason Pierce (lead) was so smacked out during the show
3) Did I mention, LOUD?

Anyway I sort of got the wig from heroin back then, it doesn't bug me as much anymore, but I couldn't listen to the music without thinking of needles and shit. Brrr. But, after that one day, It Was On.

So in short I'd been excited for 11 months about the new tour, and excited for 4 months about this show specifically, with really high hopes, to put it mildly. I listened to the first 3 albums (we try to pretend the next two didn't happen) and some Spacemen 3 stuff and then the new album Sunday afternoon, prefunking etc.

Left just in time to get great Standing Spots near the stage, 10 minutes before scheduled on-time, the band was of course fashionably late, but whatever. He opened up with a Hendrix-style "Amazing Grace" with the guitar pedals and wah-wah and everything, and I was like FUCK YEAH. After a few songs I moved even closer, so I could see the sweat dripping off his forehead, and get a good look at his shiney shoes. I did watch the other performers, they were On as well. The bassist, oh my god. There's nothing like standing on the floor in the center of a concert and feeling the bass rattle your ribcage.

Beyond the fucking amazing shredding going on onstage, there were some really amusing characters pushed up front with me. There was one really skinny tall guy - well, several, but this one kept talking to me. Some weird couple in front of me that stood stock still the whole time, except when I came into their range of comfort, at which point the girl would give me stare of death. So Seattle. And there was one guy who has Martin Gore hair styled into a mohawk - and one drunk as hell hesher-type who cracked me the fuck up, and we moshed together.

They played like three Spacemen songs - most of the audience totally didn't know them - and while there were five or so new ones, the rest were classics. Good mix, I wonder if he went back because he felt like being in that place, or if he wanted to re-engage the audience after such a long break. Either way, whatever, it fulfilled all my very high expectations. The music he does is about "the spaces between" and that really came across last night.