Pure Phase 30th Anniversary Tour

I’m not the biggest fan of ‘Classic Album’ gigs. They can take the element of surprise and spontaneity out of show and, as is proved time and time again, what may be a perfectly sequenced album on record doesn’t always make a great night out.
‘Pure Phase’ is a curious choice for a live show and I’m intrigued to see what Jason Pierce and the current line up of musicians that comprise Spiritualized are going to do with it not least because in more recent years they’ve followed a more accessible path or, leaned into their most popular LP ‘Ladies & Gentlemen…’

I’ve always been fond of ‘Pure Phase’ but it’s not an easy listen for the innocent bystander. It’s long, and it’s an uneven mix of scuzzy space rock, electronic experiments, extended blasts of noise and gospel tinged bliss outs not to mention the title track – 6 minutes of gently undulating organ drone (which reoccurs throughout the album as a backdrop and used to be used at gigs as a call to the audience to get away from the bar and assemble, ready to begin)

Uncompromising, thrilling and perfectly out of step with the curdling of Britpop into Loaded Lad culture it was on heavy rotation on our hi-fi. I’m surprised to read it was seen as a commercial failure and Jason thinks it’s one of his most underappreciated records.

I saw the band a lot around the time of it’s release and quite a lot of tracks weren’t performed live or were very different from the album versions which Jason famously laboured over..obsessively mixing two masters (one for each ear) and meticulously working on his perfect edit.

Although other dates on this short tour have sold out, the idea of 2 hours of experimental, gospel-tinged swamp blues would seem to have somewhat selective appeal on a Monday night in Manchester and there are a fair few empty seats (the promoters charging 60-70 quid for seats closer to the front hasn’t helped and notably the cheap seats up in the gods are full)
Last couple of times I saw the group they had a packed house and in fact were playing material from their more recent LPs. The audience seemed quite happy with those more song-based selections from ‘And Nothing Hurt’ and ‘Everything was Beautiful’ and there was very little looking back to the 90s – all the more surprising that Jason has chosen to go way back.

The musicians file on and it’s clear Jason hasn’t skimped on hiring plenty of musicians to recreate this complex record – we’ve got a brass section and a string section as well as two backing vocalists joining the core band line-up. Jason walks on and gives his customary wave (a man of few words on stage) and – this is a big deal for long term fans, he’s decided to do this one standing up (rather than perched on a stool JJ Cale style). The Spaceman means business.

The full band are put to good use and I’m immediately struck by little details – the intro to ‘Medication’ reveals the Brian Wilson influence Jason used to talk about in interviews and echoes California Girls or something from Pet Sounds – complete with odd little percussive elements before the full band crash in for the choruses with brass and strings to the fore. ‘The Slide Song’ – never played before (AFAIK) comes to life next with the brass and string elements revealing the song that was one of those most misted up by the swirling, disorientating mix on the record.

They’ve decided to do the whole album in the recorded sequence which means they recreate the wall of noise that is ‘Electric Phase’ most effectively – this gets a big cheer (Spiritualized fans love a bit of a noise freak out and there are plenty more of those to come). ‘These Blues’ with duelling harmonicas by Jason and Doggen is perhaps the first big ‘banger’ of the night. ‘Take Good Care of It’ was already in their early 90s set in a much more traditional form that would have fitted on their debut album but the Pure Phase version was a startlingly different track – a big floating cloud of gliding sax, organs and a vaguely dubby bassline – and amazingly it is this version that they somehow manage to recreate live.

I get the sense that this is the kind of gig Jason has always wanted to do – lots of improvisation – horns blasting, trumpet solos, beautiful strings, belting gospel harmony vocals, keyboard and piano veering into free jazz at times rather than 3 chord riffs – he’s still standing up and I can imagine that behind the shades he is really enjoying himself up there.

The centrepiece of the set is a cover of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Born Never Asked’ segued into ‘Electric Mainline’ and this time they do veer off the rather underwhelming album version and go for a full Kosmiche rhythm driven version with countermelodies spiralling around the venue. This is followed by the euphoric ‘Lay Back in the Sun’ and ‘Good Times’ – perhaps the lightest and most song-based tracks in the set that for any other band would be staples of any gig but I can’t remember the last time I heard these played live.

They spare us the full 6 minutes of Pure Phase on a loop but they let enough of it play out to say it was on the setlist and the final straight is two big, soulful ballads that close the LP. The Beach Boys influence reveals itself again in the intro to Feels Like Going home which with Pet Sounds percussion and – a Banjo! I hadn’t realised that was on the record but sure enough – there it is and it sounds wonderful – and with the brass section I’m struck by the idea that Spiritualized have all the equipment required to knock out a couple of Dexys numbers if they chose to Too Rye Aye it up a bit – and then come to my senses.

They get a well deserved standing ovation and encore – for which they pull out a song from the aforementioned ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ and it’s a mightily powerful ‘Cop Shoot Cop’ – all 15 minutes of it – going deep into a Dr John swampy groove which seems to have everyone hanging on to every note and a chance for all the musicians and singers to have one final blast.

So it was a good idea to play Pure Phase. This isn’t really an exercise in nostalgia, rather we get to hear new life breathed into an old record and freed from the obsessive detail of the studio mix it’s quite spectacular. I’ve read that Jason wants to do more of these shows and hope he does because more people need to hear the record like this – it’d make a great live LP too.

I see a fair few people carrying copies of the LP home into the night and hopefully they’ll discover Pure Phase for the first time or do it all over again.