Spiritualized summons ethereal rock
If there was any club show in Buffalo this summer to be circled in red on a calendar, it was Spiritualized at the Town Ballroom — a well-known rock act in a cozy club on a Saturday night equaled a no-brainer.
The show was highly anticipated and much-buzzed about in area music circles. And the British space-rockers didn’t disappoint. On the last stop of its U. S. tour in support of May’s release, “Songs in A&E,” the band — fronted by Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman)— delivered a powerful set of songs that often alternated between beautifully lush and sonically chaotic.
The seven-piece band, which included two gospel singers clad all in white, boldly opened with “Amazing Grace” (yes, that “Amazing Grace”). The heavy, droning guitars set against the gospel singers’ soaring vocals on a universally known song was an epic way to set the stage.
The band followed it with a track from “A&E” called “You Lie You Cheat,” which carried a guitar assault that nearly buried the singers’ poppy “la-las.” The album’s single, “Soul on Fire,” which came later, is as catchy as anything Oasis ever put out — minus the cocky swagger.
“A&E” is full of life-affirming but lyrically mysterious songs, because Pierce just recovered from a serious bout of pneumonia that nearly killed him. Indeed, “A&E” is named after his hospital’s accident and emergency ward and dedicated to its staff. It’s hard to tell how the near-death experience affected him by watching him on stage, but the ethereal guitar playing on his hollow-body Fender Telecaster seemed to have a sense of purpose.
Midway through the set came a surprise -“Walkin’ with Jesus,” a song from Pierce’s old band, Spacemen 3. The crowd of mostly late 20-and early 30-somethings has watched Pierce progress from Spacemen 3’s output in the 1980s to his six studio albums with Spiritualized. While the tour was in support of “A&E,” Saturday’s set list included at least one song from many of the band’s albums, including a rendition of “Come Together” from 1997’s “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” that was unreal.
Detroit-based garage rockers The Dirtbombs opened with a set of fuzz-drenched — and as its name would imply — filthy riffs. It came out of the same Detroit scene that birthed The White Stripes to stardom in the early 2000s. The Dirtbombs got a beefed-up sound from its two-drummer setup and a guitarist who played only single bass notes on her Fender Jaguar. It worked.
Spiritualized’s tour-ending Buffalo stop was a gem apart from the area’s saturation of outdoor and free summer shows.
Concert Review
Spiritualized
Saturday night at Town Ballroom.
