Live Photos: Spiritualized Bring Glorious Noise to NYC

It was the night I'd been waiting for: Spiritualized, the British band behind arguably 2012's best album so far, 'Sweet Heart Sweet Light,' had arrived in New York City to play Terminal 5. Rad. They didn't disappoint. No sir. Click on to see photos and read more about the show...

I was surprised to see Jason Pierce, aka J Spaceman, the band's singer-guitarist and founder, standing on two feet. In every live photo and video, he's always sitting in a chair, looking at his music stand. Not tonight. Instead he rocked out and led his four-piece band, plus two sassy female backup singers. Not bad for a dude that almost died in 2005 from double pneumonia and recently underwent chemo for a liver disease.

Pierce is a spiritual man. He repeatedly sings about god, love and drugs, sometimes all three in the same song, and paired with skyward guitar riffs it's enough to open the dopamine floodgates on your dome-piece.

Are you seeing the light? Nope. That's a strobe, dude.

Pierce traded riffs with guitarist Tony "Doggen" Foster that sounded like a rocketship blasting off. Or maybe a laser beam fight. Either way, both are sharp, practiced guitarists with taste. They never overplay, and each song is executed with style and grace.

The same goes for drummer Kevin "Kevlar" Bales. He kept time carefully, laying the foundation for the band's glorious, gospel-inspired melodies. He never forced a beat, or unleashed the wrath. Instead, he kept the sound tidy and clean, and the overall performance benefited from it.

Spiritualized played a set that mixed songs from their new album, like the single "Little Girl," with older fan favorites like "So Long You Pretty Thing."

The camera phones came out during the band's performance of "Ladies and Gentlemen, We're Floating in Space," the title track from their 1997 magnum opus. The recorded version--featured in the final scene of Tom Cruise's 'Vanilla Sky'--is the epitome of orchestral, blissed out romanticism, but live the pared down band played a quieter, more intimate version. Pierce's musical cathedral was shrank down to a prayer circle.

With the smaller-than-usual band, bassist Thomas Wayne was given the spotlight on several songs, especially the sputtering bass intro to the show's opener, "Little Girl."

The founder of space rock blasted off on songs like "Electric Mainline" and "Come Together."

Spiritualized banged out 16 songs in exactly two hours, with only a brief break before the encore. When each song pushes past six and seven minutes, picking the set list becomes an exercise in curation.

Pierce only said two words, twice, during the whole show: "Thank you, thank you." He lets his music do the talking, clearly.

The wall of reverb was slowed down on "Oh Baby," one of the band's most touching songs. The song starts as a lilt, then explodes with Pierce singing, "Oh baby, heaven's just a heartbeat away / Baby, please don't let anyone stand in your way / Darlin', you only get a lifetime to choose."

The band chugged on with "Lay Back in the Sun," a trance-like psychedelic jam from their album 'Pure Phase.'

Spiritualized straight slayed with their classic show-closer: "Cop Shoot Cop," a 16-minute-long psych-rock blast.