Venue:
O2 Islington, London Town
Date: 04/09/2016
I don’t like this venue – let’s get that straight – it’s at the arse end of a shopping mall and they tried to call it The Marquee for a year. When it’s rammed, it’s uncomfortable and for short arse buggers it’s a nightmare. BUT I always forget that it has an absolutely stonking sound system and tonight was playing pre show tunes from bands influence by and an influence on JAMC. The Velvets, BRMC, Spiritualized, Joy Division etc but the Reid Brothers chose to take the stage to Lieutenant Pigeon’s ‘Mouldy Old Dough’.
I’ve seen the band a couple of times since they reunited including their first UK show at Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown in 2007 and a tribute night for Nick Sanderson. I’d somehow missed their Psychocandy tour but they played plenty of it during the evening anyway – put simply, they were superb. Opening with ‘April Skies’ and then a snarly ‘Head On’ they were majestic, swathed in acres of dry ice of course. Jim apologises for playing “a sort of Greatest Hits” set but no-one was complaining.
Those initial shows I saw , the band were a bit sluggish, the edges sanded off by age and sobriety. Don’t get me wrong, Jim was on nowt stronger than Evian and William needs bi-focals whilst studying his strings but they feel more energised tonight. All Things Must Pass, Candy & Happy When It Rains was a triple treat to rival any other band playing on a stage anywhere else in the world at that moment. Ending the main set was a monstrous ‘Reverence’, Jim sneering the Too Hot For TOTP lyrics “I wanna die just like Jesus Christ I wanna die on a bed of spikes I wanna die just like JFK I wanna die in the USA” as the band wail & drone to feedback city central.
Leaving us with ‘Just Like Honey’ and ‘Never Understand’, a guitar centre stage screaming feedback and
promise of the first new album in 18 years. On this form it could well be one of those rare late bloomers.
Setlist
April Skies
Head On
Far Gone & Out
Between Planets
Blues From A Gun
Snakedriver
Teenage Lust
Cracking Up
The Hardest Walk
All Things Must Pass
Some Candy Talking
Happy When It Rains
Halfway To Crazy
Reverence
ENCORE
Just Like Honey
Never Understand
The Living End
Taste Of Cindy
It’s So Hard
The audience:
Nice little dance-y jumpy pit surrounded by stock still well, shoegazers naturally. Typical stand-offish London crowd but it was a Sunday.
It made me think..
26 years on from their first album they shouldn’t really be this good, in this venue but they were, no violence or infighting bullshit to get in the way of a great Scottish / British/ Wevs band howling into the void. Righteous.
Toured psychocandy down here recently. Missed the tour and regretted it. Regret it more now.
I saw them once, many years ago. They had their backs to the audience, squawled feedback and left after less than half an hour. Never forgiven them.
Seems they have grown up since. Perhaps, they are worth another punt.
Ha! Back then I would have found that unbearably exciting. Even now I think I would.
Lightweights. Gimme Van and his clock any day.
I was around twenty years old and it pissed me off. I think Dizzy Gillespie was in the band then.
Old RubbersLipsLite himself ?
Bloody racket.
*puts on slippers*
Intrigued by the fab review. I loved their Beach Boys Noir noise back then, but always had taken the received wisdom was that they were shockingly bad live, even if they didn’t have a fight. I would certainly keep an eye out for them now.
JAMC were the last great rock band IMO, Psychocandy was one of the best albums of the 80s. I saw them lots of times in the 80s, but those gigs made me feel old. At one gig at the University of London ULU, I, in my late 20s and my mate in his early 30s were queueing to get in. Because of the history of riots at their gigs the security was really heavy. It seemed like even the women were getting body searched. When we got to the door we were waved through, it was embarrassing. Strange that nearly 30 years later I wouldn’t be too old to see them.
That’s one mighty set list there.
I’m hanging out for a Darklands tour (whisper it quietly, better than Psychocandy!)
Excellent band, excellent live. Amazing that they can recreate the feedback squall of Psycho Candy so well live – the benefits of modern technology at play. Check ’em out if you haven’t yet – it’s a glorious racket to experience first-hand…