Thursday 26/04/07 Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London

October 10 1997: Spiritualized are playing a sell out gig at the Royal Albert Hall. Frontman Jason Pierce, aka J Spaceman, is about to play an impassioned rendition of Spacemen 3 classic ‘Walking With Jesus’, a plaintive paean to life’s fleeting second chances. Before a note is played, an overexcited heckler shouts at Pierce, “why are you here?” The peculiar remark ended up on the band's seminal 'Royal Albert Hall' live album when it came out the following year. Move forward a decade, and about two miles down the road, and the question now is - how are you still here?

Jason Pierce is a man who revels in the languid majesty of songs about heaven, forgiveness and salvation. Hinging on a holy trinity of God, Love and Drugs, Spiritualized’s gospel tinged space rock has earned plaudits that regularly lead followers to claim they’re the greatest band in the known universe. In 2005, Pierce nearly died of double pneumonia. So debilitating was his advanced periorbita cellulitus that Pierce's heart stopped and he was clinically dead. Twice. But if the illness nearly stole one of the UK’s most gifted songwriters, his return has added an inescapable urgency to a back catalogue already fixated with life's big questions. Searching for putative subtexts in Pierce’s new work is now unavoidable.

Tonight, Pierce is nearing the end of a short European tour, dubbed Spiritualized Acoustic Mainlines, it features three gospel singers, a string quartet, keyboardist and Pierce on acoustic guitar. It’s with Pierce’s near death experience in mind, that tonight’s gig offers something of a curious celebration. His welcome return is tempered with hushed tones, restraint, sombre reflection and an almost confessional feel to Pierce’s new material. Gone are the reams of feedback-drenched hits and prog jazz noise-outs for which he’s famed.

But if there are worries Pierce’s brush with death has mellowed his outlook, it’s quickly dispelled with set opener ‘Sitting On Fire’, one of a handful of fantastic new tracks played tonight. “So hard to fight when you’re losing,” Pierce wails with a resigned, magnetic presence. Pierce, who sits side on to the audience for the entire gig, flits between the flawless neo-gospel of ‘Cool Waves’, a standout moment from ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’, to the portent and panic of new tracks ‘Amen’ and ‘Death Take Your Fiddle’. The latter an ominous ode of despair about “drinking yourself into a coma,” the former poignantly pleads, “I don’t wanna die lord.”