The Jesus & Mary Chain Play Philly

 

The Jesus & Mary Chain, 2012!

No, this blog hasn't entered a 20-year flashback, this actually happened over the weekend... a band who first released an album in 1985 just played at the Union Transfer on Saturday and I happened to be there.  The Jesus and Mary Chain were undoubtedly one of my favorite bands from the point I discovered third album Automatic circa 1990/91 through the rest of the '90s.  1985's Psychocandy remains an all-time alternative classic, and 1986's Darklands has a slew of gems including personal favorite "April Skies."  Honey's Dead was their last "good" album in 1992 (although inferior to the first three) and the disappointing Stoned & Dethroned (1994) was followed by the truly forgettable Munki in 1998, after which the band -- fronted by brothers William and Jim Reid -- broke up.  They officially reformed for tour dates about 5 years ago but I never got to see them play (nor back in their '90s heyday) so it was pretty damned awesome to hear classics like "Head On", "The Hardest Walk", "Just Like Honey", "Reverberation", "Happy When it Rains" and others get played by the band live over the weekend.  A couple of those songs are even in my top 200 tracks of all time, so there's that.  And the band sounded pretty much like I remembered.  Yes, they were old... both William and Jim are in their fifties now and the backing band, save for the drummer, looked just as old (not sure if they were original J&MC members or not).  And I certainly haven't ever been to a concert where such an old band played, which was admittedly unsettling.  The crowd also skewed to an age range I typically don't see at concerts so I actually in better (sadly), but despite the fact that the Reids couldn't exactly rock out at their age, they still played an amazing set -- and still fought constantly, as has been their history.  Well, Jim didn't say much but at least for several early songs he had to tune his guitar in between tracks, resulting in a brief delay that William did not enjoy and he kept sniping at his brother vocally from the stage.  Good times.  But when they played, they sounded like I would have expected, maybe even better.  Really a great show.  The choice of songs was good too, particularly the three tracks that filled the encore -- "The Hardest Walk", "Taste of Cindy", and "Never Understand", all from debut album Psychocandy.  As much as I fell for Automatic when I first heard it and loved later tracks like "Far Gone and Out", the band's high point almost certainly was their first impression as an artist, some 27 years ago, and there's little doubt that these songs have stood the test of time.

 

• Download The Jesus and Mary Chain - "The Hardest Walk".mp3

• Download The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Taste of Cindy".mp3

• Download The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Blues from a Gun".mp3

   

 

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