Midnight Without the Oasis
26 Jun 2004They say life is a series of life-affecting decisions. I made the decision to dodge the flag-waving Oasis crowd on Friday night. Simple: sail from the delightful crunch and wail of PJ Harvey to the moan, tinkle and bassy rumble of Tindersticks, then stagger across site to catch as much uplifting Spiritualized soma as possible before bedtime. A night to tell the grandkids about.
PJ went off beautifully. Tindersticks were delayed by some technical difficulties at first - which excited their normally passive, melancholy fanbase into a (relative) frenzy. No doubt down to wanting to perfect a demanding setup - those glockenspiels can be a bitch, you know - until finally, 20 minutes later, we have liftoff.
The next hour alternates between gentle, eerie minimalism (Travelling Light) and crescendoes of piano chaos (Drunk Tank). They’re everything I knew they’d be and more. So much so, the surprisingly small but appreciative crowd drags the Sticks, by now mere kindling, back for more. Someone requests “Tiny Tears” and there’s a hubbub of approval. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
But the Tiny Tears made up an ocean, or rather a tidal wave eroding my time with rock’s sacred lunatics, Spiritualized. And it’s a long haul from the Acoustic to the New. And then something occurs to me – I’ll have to cut a path right through what could easily be the Festival’s biggest crowd…
“Where were you when we were getting high?” Trying to pick through 100,000 people singing along to “Champagne Supernova” (complete with flares and fireworks), as it happens. I’m quite impressed with my ability to find the easy way without describing too deformed a parabola. My path looks like the web spun by a spider on mescaline, but I make it round to the Acoustic. It’s hard to get the image of the battle of Helm’s Deep out of my head.
Crowd roars. Heart sinks as I fear they might have just finished. But Spiritualized love a good rock ending, so perhaps all is not lost.
A huddled, fuzzy creature in bright orange is being rubbed continuously on the back by a loving steward. Like a poorly child with a cough. It is a brave soul indeed who decides to “enhance” the Spiritualized experience. In the process, she hampers mine.
It was worth battling through a bemused Oasis crowd to get there. Spiritualized were on a quest, and played a storming set. I only caught the last 20 blazing minutes of it, but that’s enough to take the edge off the craving. Next time, next time…
Peter Allen
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