spiritualized: when did they become torch bearers for the classic rock generation?

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spiritualized played here on thursday and while i did not go my friend went and described the audience and it contrasted greatly with the audience when i first saw them in 93. for when i saw them it was mostly younger adults, college types and now apparently it is all classic rock types who are near or beyond 40 that drink coors light and live in their mother's basement. when did they stop being "indie-ish"? was it the volkswagen commercial? was it when the wallflowers once namechecked them in an Mtv promo? is it that horrible most recent album? i imagine spacemen 3 audiences were always like this or could be that they were not. maybe it is just because they charge more for tickets now.

― keith, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

All the times I've seen Spiritualized it was a fairly young audience. But, they are pretty good, and all ages of people like good music.

― A Nairn, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Saw them a week ago and at least half the crowd had to be late teens/ early twenties.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

at SF show it was mostly teens and twenties...lots of old folk there for BRMC...goodtime rockin roll right there

― bc, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

BRMC were a severe disappointment. They should have just covered Love and Rockets' "Motorcycle" and been done with it.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How does being around 40 year old = classic rock types?

I presume Spiritualised live, being very heavily influenced by Hawkwind, Gong and Neu would appeal to the 40 year old more than most though. If you call those bands classic rock (you might be right!).

― Alexander Blair, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

brmc set = 40 mins of drinking before heading to the floor for spz

― bc, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i would think ladies and gentlemen was what changed/widened the audience somewhat. not immediately, but because it was a Q endorsed slow burner. that demographic works that way, osmosis shit gets em every time

― gareth, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"that demographic works that way"

As opposed to other demographics who work in some other way?

I'm still not sure how you can tell if a 40 year old is a classic rock type. Is there is presumption that only young people like non- bland music? And by definition a 40 year is a classic rock type?

The original questioner saw the band 9 years ago when they had an audience in their 20s and now thay have an audience in their 30s and wonders if it is because they have changed their sound. I would suggest the solution is basic arithmetic.

― Alexander Blair, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alexander Blair's response probably answers the question best, but it occurs to me that the only time I saw Spiritualized was at a day long festival type event, with Neil Young as headliner (and in fact, the person I was going there to see). I didn't especially like them, but I suspect that the fact that they were playing an outdoor stage tended to clash with the style of their music. It did for me, anyway.

Must "indie" types be under their mid-30's?

― DeRayMi, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But my point was, I wonder how often they played as an opening act or as one of many acts in the case of festivals, on the mostly classic rock circuit?

― DeRayMi, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The classic rock circuit is a funny concept, and one which probably means something completely different to me. I came from a small town in Manitoba, and just north of us was an even smaller town that put together something called "Classic Rock Weekend" once a year for a few years. This festival, surprisingly, attracted some fairly huge names from the past, like Styx, Doobie Brothers, that kind of thing. During the weekend the festival was on, that small town would be crawling with bikers and the party-hardy types, forcing an enhanced police presence in this sleepy rural community. About the closest the festival ever got to edgy was hiring Poison as one of the headliners one year. I just try to imagine Spiritualized at one of these events, and I don't think he'd even get through 2 songs before some hepped-up Nazareth fan kicked the shit out of J Spaceman.

― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

As I think about it, that particular festival was an odd mix. The other performers I remember were: Ween (who I kind of liked), Primus (who I did't especially like), and the Blues Travellers (whose set quickly lost my interest and sent me off to investigate the hippie vendors selling doumbeks).

― DeRayMi, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You know, the funny thing is, in 30 years when we look back fondly on Spiritualized, Ween, etc, we'll probably get the same eye-rolling reaction we tend to dish out when someone today praises Jefferson Airplane (not exactly an un-adventurous act....at the TIME). So, perhaps this whole line of discussion is not exactly unwarranted. Hm.

― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, if you consider the fact that Jason Pierce is much nearer 40 than he is 20, that Spiritualized have been releasing records for ten years, and that Spacemen 3 were active for a good five to ten years prior to that, it's not a great leap of logic to consider the possibility that maybe some of their audience may have grown up with the band - acid-head teens watching SP3 in '87 would be 30+ now...

― Nick Southall, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ever since they played live and gave up FX pedals for slide guitar.

― Brave Ulysses, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i suppose it is merely a denver phenomenon then. i don't buy the growing up with the band argument because the impact of spacemen 3 in the us was so minimal that that population is surely tiny. but i could be wrong, maybe all these guys were wearing 'drugs not jobs' tee-shirts i'll need to find out.

― keith, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I saw them last November here in Minneapolis.. the audience seemed to be mostly adult intellectual-looking types, along with the typical indie-rocker crowd.

― Bobby D. Gray, Sunday, 14 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

that demographic works that way"

As opposed to other demographics who work in some other way?

well, yes! you see, the q demographic works over a long period of time, and bands, once taken to heart, remain popular (ie - pink floyd). while, for example, the chartpop demographic usually has a more limited shelf life (ie steps) - a max of 4 years. also, the q demographic tends to grow, while the chartpop demographic is often the result of an initial spark/explosion. the dance demographic works in a different way again. this would have been fairly clear i would have thought?

― gareth, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

S have been getting too much good press for too long. LGM is wicked but LAGWEFIS is fucking terrible! I mean it! Really really, really abominabally overrated and just plain LAME with a capital L A M E. J pierce is, i'm sure, a really mellow bloke and everything but that album did not deserve the critical blowjob it received.

Sway, on the other hand, is a tune.

― Chris Sallis, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The crowd just seems to get younger and youner each time I saw them. Okay so once Neil Young had all the old people coming out for him and his fellow prisoners of rock and roll but the crowd was barely 19 on one of his LAGWAFTS tours. I think it was openning for Radiohead that did that one for them.
Not that Im really complaining, that show at the Opera House had one of the shortest crowds in memory, I almost felt positively tall. Also I think that night marks the first time I saw a Teletubby backpack in the lineup, though that could have been a different show, they're all the same when your lining up.

― Mr Noodles, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't been paying too much attention to the audience make-up, but Spiritualized jumped the shark with the Royal Albert Hall CD. Beginning of the end really.

― Chris Barrus, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know a few kids going to see Spiritualized in Detroit next week. Me and my Coors Light swilling friends, however, are going to see Nick Cave instead, because we've heard him on several major soundtracks as well as that Kurt Weill tribute album.

― Curt, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Chris Sallis is OTM

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

J pierce is, i'm sure, a really mellow bloke

Met him once -- yes, mellow, stoned and generally friendly. Wouldn't want to be in his band, though -- he'd fire me sooner or later!

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The audience wear make-up to Spiritualized shows? Are they the new ICP? Or have they all gone goth?

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

spiritualized became standard bearers for the classic rock generation when they made a boring, overly-orchestrated, middle-of-the-road 4th album. If 'Ladies and Gents...' was their 'A Northern Soul' then 'Let it come Down' is their 'Alone with Everybody'. It truly is the weakest link.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 16 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,1949789,00.html

"Spiritualized runs at a "massive loss: I'd rather have 20 flugelhorns onstage than money in the bank."

good luck getting that next record deal sir.

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 17 November 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

He remembers more about the recovery, when he was confronted by a pale apparition at the end of the bed: Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, taking advantage of visiting times.

Good lord, that might convince me that I'd died.

His story is interesting to me in that there's a guy I know who similarly almost died due to leukemia in 1993 who was in a touch-and-go state himself at one point, and Lazer Guided Melodies is what pulled him through.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 17 November 2006 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

this is good news

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 November 2006 22:52 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

Let It Come Down still sounds good, i think. Though the phrase "VU meets Songs Of Praise" did occur to me at one point.

― admrl, Saturday, 26 July 2008 22:10 (seventeen years ago)

"VU meets Songs Of Praise" OTFM - The tight-arsed public-school choirboy vocals just sink it for me.

― Soukesian, Saturday, 26 July 2008 22:13 (seventeen years ago)

"Out of Sight" is one of the best songs Jason did, post-S3.

― stephen, Sunday, 27 July 2008 00:22 (seventeen years ago)

said it before say it again: "WGTH(TSII)" is my favourite Spz song

― Just got offed, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:07 (seventeen years ago)

Just saw them live - it was like the cocaine scene in Walk Hard.

What a waste

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 27 July 2008 02:26 (seventeen years ago)

uh. explain?

― stephen, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 02:52 (seventeen years ago)

I saw them Sunday at Terminal 5 and it was pretty good. However, there was a guy who looked like Michael Moore asking me and my friends if we liked Pink Floyd. This thread makes a lot of sense.

But, he played some Spacemen 3 stuff, which was kinda cool...

― jonathan - stl, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 05:58 (seventeen years ago)

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