At a packed out Jesus And Mary Chain gig on Friday around 11, I battle my way to the front of the stage(ish), take a couple of snaps and retreat to the back where I watch the show in the mirror behind the bar and on a close circuit TV. The TV closes in on lead singer Jim Reid's face and he looks handsome but gaunt and beyond sad. Jim looks as though as if he could start crying at any moment, holding to the Mic stand, kicking it away from him as he clutches the mic and retreats on his heels, letting the light show do the work for him.
It's as if he is living up to every dour Scotsmen cliche known to man. And guitarist brother William, is worse. I've actually met them and they seemed perfectly normal to me, but on stage they are neither talkative nor emotional. "We would love to chit chat with you" Jim claims early on "But we are retards with nothing to say".
SO they let the music do the talking for them and nearly 30 years after they formed (there was a 7 year hiatus in there somewhere), they have bottled the feedback and grown into an elder statesman like alt rock band. One with a great idea that is stolen to this day, lour guitars added to the smartest of melodic complexities and this is what they use to keep your interest till and extended "Reverence"
It starts off really well, with three sure shots one after another culminating in a terrific "Far And Out Gone" off Honey's Dead , an album they return to three more times while the superior (surely their greatest moment) Darklands, only gets visited one. And to be perfectly honest, a less than inspired "Happy When It Rains". Not terrible, mind. But there is a distracted professionalism to JAMC in 2012, they are both sharp and getting through the motions and Jim sounds like a man who just heard his dog died and his wife lived, But it is all unsettling rote and it's not loud enough and they don't seem to have much invested in the evening.
Look, any night you get to hear Jim singing "Just Like Honey" isn't gonna be an entire wash out. The band is pretty damn good, that's the Fountain Of Waynes drummer and Johnny Moore on rhythm guitar? He was Bobby Gillipsie's replacement on drums before changing instruments. But any night a set list filled with so much goodness fails to ignite something is not quite right.
Grade: B