Boom, ba-boom, tish!
The stuttering “Be My Baby” drums reverberating through the Riviera Tuesday night recalled a thousand other songs. The same could be said for the languid vocals and simple-but-celebratory guitar chords. Yet the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” endures as something special, a keystone of rock connecting the ’60s and ’70s to the indie ’80s. If the song’s initial effect first hit 30 years ago — side one, song one of the group’s 1985 debut “Psychocandy” — it still exudes an incalculable cool. Take one part Ramones, fuse it with the bright melodies and cavernous beats of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector, toss in ample Velvet Underground scuzz ‘n’ fuzz, then turn everything up until the chord changes disappear. What’s not to love?
At the same time, where do you go from there? There’s little consensus surrounding the Scottish group’s catalog post-“Psychocandy.” The album (which the band played in its entirety) got so much right, that anything following its formula of perfect pop plus extreme walls of feedback squalls was bound to be a letdown to some. Perhaps that explained the decision to start the night with a short, preemptive encore, a taste of early singles and songs drawn from the next few albums, nuggets like “April Skies,” “Head On” and the nihilistic “Reverence,” fine variations on the band’s ingenious gimmick, however perfunctory their renditions.
There’s a reason it’s the Jesus and Mary Chain’s music that still resonates, not its reputation as entertainers. The fisticuff animosity between brothers William and Jim Reid is the stuff of rock lore, their on/off disdain for each other — and sometimes the audience — is legendary. Whenever they take the stage together, let alone make it through an entire set, it can feel like a small miracle. This night, singer Jim’s scant small talk came second to leaning against his mic stand in a show of defiant anti-charisma. His brother was most at home leaning into his amp, his guitar sounding like a buzzsaw cutting through steel beams. Both seemed happiest hidden behind clouds of pumped-in smoke.
And yet despite it all, the power of “Psychocandy” — sometimes sunny, sometimes scary, often both — shone through. Classic pop and white noise can make for strange bedfellows, but their twisted collision in songs like “Taste of Cindy” and “Never Understand” warmed the heart even as they harmed the ears. Performed with studied indifference and distorted to the point of amp-frying abstraction, sure, but nobody said bliss always had to be pretty.
Klein is a freelance critic.
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