On Sunday night, this year’s Itunes live sessions finished in glorious manner with an exceptional double bill: Spiritualized and Nick Cave and the bad seeds, playing at Lyndhurst Hall, part of George Martin’s AIR studios. Their mind-blowing live sets will become shortly available as exclusive itunes downloads
The venue, an old church with incredible acoustics, was the perfect setting for one of the most impressive shows we have seen for a while. Spiritualized began with their Acoustic Mainlines formation (A recovered after an illness-related long hiatus Jason Pierce with a string quartet; a keyboard player and female gospel vocal trio), which they have been touring with since last year’s Jim White curated ATP. They covered most of their greatest moments; introduced a couple of brand new songs, included in the band’s forthcoming album “Songs in A&E”, and ended with “Broken Heart”, our favorite track in their seminal, Rober award winner album “Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in Space”. The venue was perfect for the band’s acoustic feel and Pierce and co gave an arresting performance.
Spiritualized will return to full line-up after Coachella festival and will be touring around the globe (Spanish audiences will be able to catch them at Benicassim).
And as the main headliners, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds presented their new studio album “Dig, Lazarus Dig!”, four years after the double set “The Lyre Of Orpheus/Abattoir blues” won the Rober for album of the year and one day before becoming available for general release.
Lazarus, already tipped as a sure candidate for the Robers 2008, is another impressive work that carries on the path started with Abattoir, but is also influenced by a rawer, rockier vibe, as showcased by Cave’s in between project “Grinderman”. The live set consisted on the album being played in its entirely and ended with a rendition of the classic “Tupelo”. A real treat for fans, that managed to ascertain the unbreakable state of top form Cave and the seeds enjoy.
“Dig, Lazarus Dig” can be heard in full at the band’s myspace page and their Last FM group.
