BY STEPHEN DEUSNER

Jason Pierce appears onstage in a plain white t-shirt, white shoes, light-colored denim, and sunglasses, his hair stylishly disheveled and his expression typically unreadable. He waves briefly to the nearly sold-out audience, then take his place at stage right, with the rest of Spiritualized arranged in a semi-circle with a notable void in the middle where a frontman might stand.

Throughout the evening, Pierce does not engage the audience or even really look at them. Instead, he faces the lead guitar player at stage left, trading licks left and right. It’s as if Pierce has subsumed himself into the band, which becomes no longer a one-man enterprise but a traditional rock line-up: two guitars, keys, rhythm section, and two back-up singers. Even the frenetic light show conceals him by backlighting the group relentlessly while blinding the audience and strobing at a level just shy of seizure inducing.

Of course, the setlist emphasizes the new Songs in A&E, but the band revives tracks from pretty much every album, even throwing in a Spaceman 3 song. It’s not a greatest hits, but it does show the group’s range. Sure, “Shine a Light” sounds vaguely like late-era Pink Floyd (a comparison to be avoided at all costs), yet their live renditions of “Rated X” and even the space-folksy “Walking with Jesus” sound genuinely tender and wounded, even as they stray from Pierce’s comfort zone.

Of course, there’s the noise: static, distortion, feedback, wails, cries, shouts. Many in the crowd appear perplexed by the decibel onslaught, but this aspect is as crucial to Spiritualized as all the drug metaphors and souls on fire, deconstructing the pretty songs to show the distress and frustration underneath. After the venom-spitting “Come Together,” which wickedly inverts the hippie directive, closer “Take Me to the Other Side” sounds like a violent assault, culminating in Pierce stabbing his guitar neck into his amp, throwing it into the drum kit, and walking off stage.

How can anyone expect an encore? But Pierce does reappear briefly—to rapturous applause—but only waves again to the crowd and saunters offstage again. This aloofness is part of his appeal. He makes music that’s grandiose and cathedral, the better to lose himself utterly in it—that’s its true narcotic effect. His standoffishness makes it possible for listeners to get lost as well, as long as they’re wandering a different wing of the song.

[Photos by Melody Deusner]