Friday, April 27, 2007

Jesus and The Mary Chain at the Glasshouse

There are a few bands that I missed back in day. Jesus and The Mary Chain were one of those bands. I still bitterly remember Lollapolloza 1992 selling out one person before me. After meeting a small army of colleagues at the immensely overcrowed "bar" a few doors down, we went to the glasshouse to see some legends perform.




I thought there would be a larger roar when Jesus and Mary Chain appeared on stage. Most people where probably still in shock that the band made it this far. The opening chords of "Never Understand" rang out and I was entranced. The distortion and feedback from William Reid's guitar setup was not what I imagined but still was impressive. William was playing his hollowbody Gibson through some Orange Amps and had a Crowther Audio Hot Cake pedal combined with a Dunlop Wah Pedal. One glitch the band encountered was a restart of "Cracking Up" as Jim had miss timed the intro vocals but covered it up when he mentioned he originally didn't sing on the song. One thing that impressed me the most Jim Reid's vocals sounded timeless given all the years. The new song "All Things" sounded great and gives me a glimmer of hope that they will release a new album in the future. All of the songs sounded superb but I felt that "Blues from a Gun" had a extra singe of flame on the track. The highly rumored appearance of a movie actress turned out to be Annie Hardy from Giant Drag. Unfortunately, her vocals were turned down to an undectectable level. It was good to see Phil King and Loz Colbert onstage again. I don't think a Lush reunion would ever happen, but there still maybe hope for a Ride reunion. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Smashing Pumpkins "Reunion" will be just as good if not better.




Jesus and Mary Chain Setlist from the Glass House:
"Never Understand"
"Head On"
"Far Gone and Out"
"Sidewalking"
"Snakedriver"
"Happy When It Rains"
"Some Candy Talking"
"Between Planets"
"Blues From A Gun"
"Cracking Up"
"All Things (New Song!)
"Teenage Lust"
"Just Like Honey (Annie from Giant Drag on background vocals)"
"Reverence"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dammit, you're fast !

I wanted to write something like "hope you had fun, blah, blah" but i guess "amazing" sums it already. You'll have to tell stories, though :)

Enjoy Vegas and the end of Coachella, too !!

Anonymous said...

Amazing? That they were back together, yes. To describe the show last night "amazing" might be a bit much. They started out shaky and slowly put it back together by the end of the set, but never got it to the point where they were assaulting us like in the old days. I realize it's tough to get the amps to feedback the way you want in different rooms, but at the very least they could have turned the volume up.

The rhythm section, on the other hand was very solid-- Colbert and King still have it. I'd be thrilled to see a Lush and/or Ride reunion if their performance is indicative of what those shows would sound like...