The nights of every riot being a mini
revolution may well have been left behind by The Jesus and Mary Chain, and
similarly the late appearances and early finishes as a statement of truculent
defiance are gone to, but there is no denying that the power has not diminished
in the near thirty years since they gave the world psychocandy.
Live they still exude a great
deal more raw menace and primal emotion than any band that they spawned in
their wake.
They still push everything to the
point of brutality and then touch you with the butterfly kiss.
Very often you never really know
if you should swoon or duck when in their presence.
Yet for the iconic Barrowlands
Ballroom crowd - on the second night of a couple of sold out dates - it is very
obviously the former, as amongst the maelstrom of feedback and fuzz there is an
innate understanding of how far is enough, and how far is too far.
Symbiotically the audience by and
large get it, and they do indeed swoon when they aren’t being buffeted by the
force of the hurricane performance.
The volume could of course lend
itself to some jumping to the assumption that a degree of intimacy could be
lost, but they would be wrong.
No matter how distorted they push
the levels of their sound to, regardless of the amount of feedback applied, they
are fully aware of when to apply pressure and when to release it.
And therein is probably where the
magic of the Jesus and Mary Chain lies.
In the intervening years between
the release of psychocandy and the present we have seen many words having been
written about it.
Some to raise it up as an iconic
watershed album, and others to dismiss it as a short sharp burst that outside
the first flush of excitement doesn't stand up to a heavy critique.
The latter would argue that the
band are mere musical magpies that picked up the shiny shiny from the Velvet
Underground, Phil Spector and Suicide and ran with it, but when they do this it
just draws attention to how they have missed much of the point.
It’s not about the separate
influences, but the melding of them.
They simply fall short of
grasping that the sum of their parts should never be the benchmark that the band
are judged by, and instead that the focus should always be firmly angled
towards the whole.
If they could embrace that then
it would be difficult for them to deny that the whole is a wondrous layering of
noise that often builds to a cacophonous release that pushes for an emotional
response rather than anything else, and it did partially change the direction
of where music was heading.
And even if that is still beyond
their grasps then the testament of the live shows themselves casually evidences
that those who do consider them a pivotal act and laud them as such are
probably right.
It’s doubtful that anyone who was
bathed in the strobing light show in the Barrowlands could disagree as the Jesus
and Mary Chain delivered on every single promise that was made in 1985.
It’s very obvious that the Reid
brothers and co are not looking to take any prisoners on this tour.
So it’s probably best to just put
your arms up and surrender now.
Easier to just go with it rather
than resist.
Next year people will look back and claim that the album and the anniversary tour were equally as important in the bands career.
So don't miss them.