The first thing I said when I left the The Jesus and Mary Chain show last night was, “I thought it would be a lot louder.” I was really looking forward to the band destroying my eardrums with their layers of reverb, but I left without a ringing in my ear. But hey, I just saw The Jesus and fucking Mary Chain and wasn’t about to complain one bit.
This is a band that I never thought I would be able to see in my lifetime, but there I was, just an arm’s length from the stage in awe that I was hearing these songs live. That alone was enough for me, the band could have come out and played a couple of chords and took a piss on the stage and I think I would have been happy. Seriously though, the show was solid and it was amazing to hear songs like “Sidewalking,” “Some Candy Talking,” “Snakedriver,” and “Just Like Honey,” seemingly brought back from the dead to explode again with life from the quintet on stage.
In addition, the band played a new track called “All Things Must Pass” which stood up incredibly well to their older material, mainly due to the song’s killer guitar riff. In fact, I think that this song ended up being the loudest of the night. It shouldn’t go without saying though that the vocals on “All Things Must Pass” could use some work.
Unlike the band’s notorious 10-30 minute sets in their early years, JAMC treated us to a 70 minute show complete with an encore. No one fought and no equipment was trashed, albeit some of us were hoping for it. This was a much more tame and ever so slightly less bitter incarnation of the band, which was received quite well by myself and the rest of the crowd. Another bonus treat of the show was seeing Ride’s Loz Colbert pound it out on drums giving the band an immense sound.
Last night’s show knocks another band off a list that I never thought I’d see, one more to go, the other one isn’t going to happen, but I hear someone made a good movie.
[MP3:] Jesus and Mary Chain ”All Things Must Pass” (live on Letterman)
3 Comments
Permalink
I saw JAMC in Dallas in the early nineties and was unimpressed. It couldn’t have been easy for them to go on stage after Nine Inch Nails rocked Arcadia Theater (and this was while Pretty Hate Machine was taking off). We were also annoyed that JAMC played the first several songs of their set from behind the closed curtains. All you could see was their silhouettes. We ended up leaving before they even showed themselves!
Permalink
i saw them at by first big festival ‘concert’….1992 lollapalooza. they we’re sandwiched between pearl jam and soundgarden in the lineup. tough spot but they put on a great show. wasn’t particularly loud though, especially compared to ministry who played later that night.
Permalink
I saw them on both those tours and if it was hard coming on following NIN, imagine how hard it must have been coming out after Pixies, who toured with them right after Dolittle I believe. The set at Webster Hall started off pretty rough, but it got much better as it went along and I was really satisfied. Definitely thought they were better than they were in their last couple tours.
One Trackback
Buy vicodin….
Vicodin. Vicodin statistics. Effect of vicodin. Re your vicodin refill is ready….