The Eden Project, an environmental theme park deep in the heart of the Cornish countryside, was formerly a clay pit. Now, £86m later, it is one of Britain's most successful tourist attractions and, with its giant, science-fiction biomes, surely the most visually arresting. Among those biomes is a 3,000-capacity amphitheatre, where, despite the stage's resemblance to a municipal bandstand, Spiritualized should have provided a special evening. Through an insurmountable combination of circumstances and attitude, it doesn't quite happen.
It is 11pm before the septet deign to shuffle on stage. By this time it is so cold that braving the outdoors on the so-called English Riviera requires several layers of clothing. The bedraggled crowd's joy has been dampened by skimpy catering, a lacklustre Beth Orton and the sheer frustration of being somewhere potentially magical that is actually closed.
Moreover, Spiritualized are not especially spirit-raising. Singer Jason Pierce behaves in the affected manner of a hormonally distressed teenager. He refuses to speak - the common courtesies of "hello" and "thank you" would have been a start - and will not face the crowd, electing instead to stand sideways, thus giving every impression of playing solely for his band rather than the audience.
Even so, Spiritualized make music worthy of the grandest setting, despite their current lack of a choir. A squall of feedback heralds the ferocious Electricity and suddenly all is well. Pierce has a punk voice akin to Thurston Moore's of Sonic Youth. The lighting is superlative, and when the band segue into the gentle Shine a Light, music and venue merge seamlessly and beautifully. The 10-minute coda of what in any other era would have been classed as prog rock, reminiscent of Magma in full flow, is actually a spine-tingling bonus.
At midnight, with Pierce and band deep in the heart of Take Good Care of It, the worst happens. What had been a refreshing drizzle turns into all-out rain. Immediately half the crowd squelch off to distant car parks. The subsequent hour is an endurance test for all who remain, although as the band belt out Come Together, there is some kind of communal glue keeping the sodden throng close. From the dry stage - steam rising against the deluge as Pierce sings of calling upon God during his solitary encore - it must surely have been transcendental. For the cold, soaked audience, however, it was a more down-to-earth experience.
