I’ll admit I’m probably not the best person to review this gig, I’m not really familiar with the music of Spiritalized (check out music on myspace), and I was wrecked tired going into the gig. I bought a ticket because so many people mentioned it would be excellent, and that it was amazing they were playing in such a small venue. So I got a ticket and got hold of the latest album ‘Songs in A&E’.

I listened to the album a few times, at first surprised that it was so ’singer-songwritery’ for want of a better term. I had it in my head that Spiritalized were dancey and upbeat and psychadelic. Once I got over that I slowly began to appreciate the album for what it was, but it still wasn’t completely grabbing me.

Sir Brian Barry did say that he was never overly fond of the albums, but loved the live sets, so I looked forward to the gig, and in the run up to it I listened to the album more. I fouind it mildly depressing but my appreciation of it grew nonetheless.

Soul On Fire, the first single from the album began to really get into my head. I looked forward to hearing it live.

So we headed in last night to Cyprus Avenue and as the band took the stage (somehow they all fit on the tiny space) someone commented that it was good to have real rock and roll stars in Cyprus Avenue, and they certainly looked the part.

The first thing you noticed was that this was going to be a LOUD gig. And I mean LOUD. They opened with Amazing Grace which went into one of their own numbers, I can’t remember which. It seems that Jason Pierce, who essentially is Spiritualized, was extremely sick and wrote Songs in A&E based on his experience. I read somewhere that over the course of a couple of albums Spiritualized has introduced more and more of a gospel influence to the music, and Songs in A&E certainly has a lot of biblical references, Jesus, Heaven, Angels, Souls and the like feature heavily, so Amazing Grace made sense as an opener.

The two backing singers complimented Pierce’s vocals beautifully, even if at times I felt they were underused, and it would have been nice to hear them really let fly with those voices.

As I had hoped, “Soul On Fire” was amazing. Other stand out songs were “I think I’m in Love” and the incredibly long version of “Come Together”. There was a really good mix of slower and rockier numbers, with the pacing of the gig just right - if you weren’t as tired as I was. I kept wishing some of the longer numbers wouldn’t go on so long

It’s been a while since I was at such an old school rock gig, with plenty of loud guitars and attitude from the lead singer. There was zero audience interaction - zip, nothing, nada. Jason is too cool for school with his shades and his sneer, and it seemed almost quaint up to point - a throwback to the days when we glorified our movie stars and rock stars instead of trying to pull them down to our level.

But it’s only fun up to a point.

As the last song ended in a rocking wall of noise, Pierce went to take off his guitar, and there was some bit of a thing going on up the front. I think someone right at the front put their hand up to take the guitar as he took it off - i couldn’t really see. Sir Brian Barry said he had a good enough view and that the guy tried to take the guitar, but wasn’t aggressive or threatening or anything - either way Pierce turned on him fairly vicously and lashed out at him, with his foot, his fist and then his guitar. If the guitar had connected it would have done serious damage, so I can only hope he was aiming to miss. Did anyone else see exactly what happened up the front? Leave a comment below please!

For someone who spent a good part of an hour and a half singing about Jesus and being saved and the like it seemed somewhat hypocritical. I like gospel music, but I don’t like people who are full of shit using religion for effect in their music, and I found this quote in an interview with him about his illness:

So what about all those hymnal, religiously-tinged songs in his canon, from Walkin’ With Jesus to Lord Can You Hear Me?

“It’s just language,” he explains, “like Be Bop A Lula.” Although he adds that “even Godless people turn to God in utter desperation, so that song’s a cry for help”.

Maybe I’d be a bigger fan of Spiritualized if there was more honesty in his songs and less posturing.

The title says it all. Jape. Rocked. Cyprus Avenue.

Goodtime John played a good support set to get us in the mood, and then Jape took the stage. Frontman Richie Egan - you can’t help but like him. As a friend of mine described him, he’s like his own number one fan, rocking out to his own music, loving it. And you can’t help but get caught up in his enthusiasm.

Wkipedia labels Jape as electronica/rock, and also references the fact that Richie Egan played in David Kitt’s live band for a while. There are obvious similarities between the sensibilities of Jape’s music and that of Kitt’s - they both have a knack for down earth lyrics, catchy riffs and a way of making the local and the mundane worthy of rocking out to.

The set consisted of his new album ‘Ritual’ for the most part, and if there was one complaint from the night it was that the set, at barely an hour long from what I could tell, was too short.

Still, leave ‘em wanting more I guess. The last song (pre-encore) was the stand out track from ‘Ritual’ - ‘I was a man’.

Buy the album, go see the live show, Jape rocks:

Arrived in Crane Lane to a fairly empty room for the O’Death gig, was worried there would be no atmosphere for the gig. Also, the only song I had checked out of O’Death’s was Nathaniel, which is great, but quite slow and dirgeful for the most part - so this is what I was expecting.

What I got was high energy, shit kicking, full on rocking music of a genre that was certainly country but also contained strains of god knows how many other genres including, undeniably, punk.

The gig kicked off to a smallish audience, but the manic drummer beckoned the crowd forward, and we dutifully shuffled forward a few feet. Not enough though, there was still space at the front, right by the band. The drummmer was not satisfied and he abandoned his drum kit to come and point at the empty space and yell over the music at the audience to fill that space.

We weren’t going to mess with him, and I’ve never seen a crowd move so fast to do what they were told.

Very quickly the room filled up as the band belted out their catalogue of amazingly high energy country-punk-bluegrass-gypsy-metal or whatever you want to attempt to label them today.

The band initiallly seemed somewhat bemused by the crowd, possibly due to the seeming lack of reaction in the form of dancing, but I think the audience were simply dumbstruck by the genius of it all. As the whooping, screaming and clapping after each song only grew stronger the band seemed to relax in the knowledge they were appreciated and went from strength to strength.

Check out this song and then imagine it done with ten times more energy at at least four times the speed and you’ll get an idea of what a live gig of O’Death’s is like.

There were five guys playing on stage in the Crane Lane as far as I remember, the singer (and guitar player), bass player, violin player, banjo player and drummer - but I was too close to the stage to get them all in the photos above.

The drummer and violin player were particularly intimidating - screaming and glaring at the audience, stalking the stage and jumping around like lunatics. The Bass player was a slightly more introverted brand of lunatic wild hair and beard moshing away on stage - his screaming mostly directed at the violin player. The singer and banjo player were slightly more approachable seeming, with that odd Will Oldham style shyness about them.

We were somewhat disappointed that the drummer never got his fistful of chains out to whip his drumset into a frenzy (see aforementioned video of Nathaniel), but we did get treated to his taking a large cymbal, standing on his drumseat, holding it over his head and crashing it down over his entire drumkit as a song finale at one point.

The set was short enough by today’s standards, somewhere about the hour mark, but no one was complaining, the energy invested in that single hour was quadruple what other bands would give you in double the time. Work that one out.

Unbelievable that this was a free gig. I’ve paid huge amounts of money to see bands who couldn’t begin to compare to the talent this band has.

Not to mention that after the gig the band mingled with the crowd and generally hung out for a while, and you couldn’t possibly meet a nicer bunch.

Tour dates on their site. Do not miss.