The Jesus and Mary Chain - Live at the Roundhouse
The Glasgow noise giants come through London to promote their latest album, "Glasgow Eyes".
The Jesus and Mary Chain have finally crawled out of their hole to release their eighth album, “Glasgow Eyes”, an album that can be described as “okay” and not much else, and set across the globe to shake up both their old fans, as well as a new generation of shoegazers (exemplified by the sheer number of daddy-daughter couples in the venue). One of my favourite bands, I tagged along to their first of a two-night stop at the London Roundhouse.
Whilst I was relatively unimpressed by their newest album, it’s worth mentioning that the Reid brothers cast these new songs in a far better, slightly less sterile and stilted light in a live setting. Opening with the highlight of that album, “jamcod” (meaning “Jesus and Mary Chain Overdose, referring to the first time they split after a disastrous 1999 gig at the House of Blues), provides a great energy to the gig. Whilst the Mary Chain have never been one for insane stage antics and leaping around, preferring to stay fixed to the ground and allowing the music to speak for itself and blast around them, its the great confidence and self-belief that carries the songs in the way that they do. That said, there’s an unshakeable sense that the band are all slightly nervous, their lack of stage movement coming off more like anxiety as opposed to apathetic swagger. No more is this exemplified in the false start of follow up classic, “April Skies”. Die-hard Chain fans will appreciate the very evenly-rounded setlist, touching on all of their albums at least a couple of times. Though this does raise a slight issue, the severe lack of material from their masterpiece, an album I’ve talked about to great lengths, “Psychocandy”. Whilst the legendary opener, “Just Like Honey” is obviously played just before the encore, there’s something lacking, as it was in the whole set for the most part outside of some occasional passages. As was pointed out by a couple punters behind me, they simply aren’t loud enough. Hey, maybe they’re older, maybe they’re bored, maybe the material is tired, but their blasts of noise only *just* reach where I’m standing (smack in the middle). The slower sections do offer moments of gentle melodicism similar to that of late-Velvet Underground, such as “Chemical Animal” and “Some Candy Talking”. It then becomes clear that the band are far more excited to be playing their newest material, as opposed to the stuff they’ve been playing for 40 years. Whilst this is completely understandable, it does add to an air of resentment. Whilst the weird and slightly corny single “Girl 71” is weird and corny, the drugged and restless chug of “In a Hole” and the dancing chant of “Sidewalking” save what could and probably should be thrown from the setlist after they’re done touring this album. Whilst the dreamy lilt of “Sometimes Always” is attempted, it’s played far too fast that it comes and goes with little impact (that and the fact that it is unfortunately missing the song’s star player, Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval). After this, Jim gives the audience an unconvincing goodbye, walking offstage for a piss and a drink, to then come back on with their band to play four of their best tunes to date. Starting with the slow and ethereal breath of “Darklands”, the melodic squall of “Taste of Cindy”, the antithetical and hateful “I Hate Rock n Roll”. It is here that they arrive on their final song of the set, and while I still am a bit sore that they didn’t play their classic (and my personal favourite Mary Chain song), “Never Understand”, instead they provide me with an unforgettable experience, with a song which I ashamedly had never heard off before, the lead single from their 1992 album “Honey’s Dead”. “Reverence” is essentially a song that can be described through one analogy: if Blur’s “Leisure” was the album that killed baggy, then “Reverence” was the song that hung, drew, quartered and burned its remains. Its pulsing drum beat stabs you in the chest as the band really get to make their guitars scream for the first time, good and proper. Few moments are as euphoric as Jim Reid screaming how much he wants to die over his brother’s guitar squalls. Whilst the band do come off as slightly weary and over it, they’re still able to piece together a fantastic and utterly memorable climax that will stick with me for a long, long time. Is that not the point? 7.5/10