Spiritualized

Spiritualized

Spiritualized is one of those bands that is exceedingly unsuited to the festival life, and yet continues to pop up here and there anyway on various summer bills. Like FlyLo, they benefitted from the fact that FYF has the arena, especially given the slowburn heroin gospel tracks the band’s been loading up the set with this summer. Playing a relatively early set at 5PM, Spiritualized took full advantage of the arena and created a totally different experience from the rest of FYF. The entrance the standing room floor was clogged with smoke effects so that it was as if you were literally passing between worlds, Spiritualized’s celestial drugginess inside and the surprising revelation that the sun was still up upon exit. There was a lot of punchier, poppier acts to take in on FYF’s second day, but Spiritualized fit in neatly with having Dinosaur Jr. and the Jesus And Mary Chain around — it’s another one of those gigs where it feels great to let all the underwater noise and gleamingly tripped-out slide guitars engulf you for a little bit.