At the beginning of the summer of 2024, not long after I returned from the NO VALUES show in California, my same group of old friends in the “old country” sent me a link to an upcoming tour that was going to stop in Denver later in the year and asked if I would go…
Are you kidding me??? Hell yeah I would go! Let’s go! And so, tickets were bought, for both the Fillmore Auditorium, and for the airlines that would bring them here just like I went there for No Values…because when you have a chance to see 2 of the best and most influencial bands of the 80’s that you’ve loved since your youth, you don’t pass it up!
The Jesus & Mary Chain: the most influential rock band you may never have heard!
While I don’t want to turn the Drag City Raceway blog into a full-blown music history site, my “Out of the Slot” heading lets you know this post isn’t about slot cars, and I simply have to say a few things about JAMC, a band that I feel is only now getting the respect and recognition they deserve…
While their music is structurally very simple, the Chain’s unique sound-their sonic attack of squalling feedback noise-has influneced countless bands over the last 40 years even though millions of people who listen to those later bands have probably never heard of them. Imagining the Reid Brother’s story is like a “dark mirror” of classic Americana: a pair of brothers growing up relatively poor in damp rainy Scotland in the 1970’s and early 80’s in love with the pop of the ‘60s, particularly the Beach Boys, yet having no way to relate to songs about “fun in the sun,” they took those influences and inverted them, writing songs that sound like the Beach Boys went to Hell as passengers on the Event Horizon and returned as evil images of themselves. Their first single, “Upside Down” released in 1985, was a groundbreaking song the likes of which had never been heard: it is a song that is so loud and distorted that listening to it at volume can make you wonder how so much noise manages to retain a structure and a melody as it makes your ears bleed! With that release, the Chain gave birth to a whole new term in music: “Noise Pop,” which is still used to this day. Their fusion of starkly contrasting sonic elements—melodic pop sensibilities with abrasive noise and distortion—made them pioneers of a sound that would shape the direction of alternative music for decades, and still is!
In addition to their sonic innovations, The Chain played a crucial role in shaping the aesthetic and ethos of alternative music. Their dark, brooding image, aloof attitudes, and introspective lyrics resonated with the underground culture of the 1980s, contributing to the rise of a DIY ethos in the independent music scene. They prefigured the indie and alternative rock explosion of the 1990s. Bands like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and The Smashing Pumpkins drew inspiration from their willingness to push sonic boundaries while maintaining a core of catchy, simple songwriting. Kurt Cobain, for instance, cited Psychocandy as a significant influence, appreciating the band’s ability to marry dissonance with melodic sensibilities. Yet how many of those flannel-wearing “grunge kids” back in those “Seattle days” had even heard of them?
To this day, they still influence artists of all stripes: everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Mazzy Star to Tess Park cites them as one of the bands that helped define their sound. Its not a bridge too far to claim the entire music genre often called “Shoegaze” would not exist without their influence!
A nearly religious experience!
Sadly, dispite their historical importance, the Chain only ever had a single song that was anything close a “hit,” which was “Head On” from their 1989 album Automatic. This song got some pretty heavy airplay on some of the more edgy FM stations in ‘89 and ‘90 and would later be covered by The Pixies, but although I liked the song from the moment I heard it, it was the only song I knew by JAMC until a fateful night in the winter late in 1991. On that cold night, I was hanging out with my friend Robert James Alcala at his house a few blocks down the street from mine in Upland CA; a pair of disaffected late teens working through our angst, Bobby and I had developed a strong friendship based on our mutual love of music, and it was on that night that he wanted me to hear something I hadn’t heard before: he dropped Psychocandy into his CD player, and from the moment I heard the first shrieks of “Inside Me,” a wicked smile cracked across my face, and I knew-knew!-I had found a new band! Bobby got me into a lot of great bands in those angsty years, and the Chain was one of the best: I still remember everything about that night; it was a revelation, a rapture of almost religious fervor, and I’ve been a fanatic ever since! For years I made due with a cassette copy of Psychocandy pulled from his CD, but following that I rapidly dived in with both feet, buying my own copies of Darklands and Automatic in short order (both on casette) and then acquiring Honey’s Dead on CD when it was released in early ‘92. Since then, I haven’t missed a release, and have bought every album they’ve put out…and I always will, because as this show demonstrated, the band is still going strong!
That brings us to the other headliner, the Psychedelic Furs: this is a band I’ve always liked but can’t call myself a “fan” because I know only their singles, but they had many over their 45 year career, and they were great; while most people know them only from their biggest hit, “Pretty In Pink” (the title track from the famous movie we all remember and love), my favorite of their songs has always been “Heartbreak Beat,” the opening tracks from what I consider their best album, Midnight to Midnight from 1987. Its a personal thing, as that song has become my anthem for my partnership with Patrick. But wait: I’m jumping ahead! Let’s go back to the night of the show…
Concert Night!
The show opened with an artist I had never heard called Frankie Rose, and from the opening note of her opening track, I was hooked! Looking her up after the show reveals that’s not a new outfit; she’s been around a while (she even covered a song by The Damned!), so she’s clearly in good company, and her performance was very impressive: it was a great opening act, and as if seeing 2 bands you’ve loved most of your life wasn’t enough, I got the bonus of discovering someone new!
Strangley, the Chain were the second band up: strange because they were the clear headliner. That’s the interesting thing, though: the Furs sold more records and they’ve also been around a lot longer, so which band was “the headliner” really depends on your point of view! The crowd made it clear, though: the house was packed for the Chain’s performance!
I last saw them in 2012 at The Ogden, one block east of The Fillmore; that was year they did they the “Psychocandy Tour”, and played every song from that album in its entirety! I was looking for more variety this time around and oh man, did we get it! They graced us with some of my all-time favorite tracks, including “Blues From A Gun” from Automatic, “Cracking Up” from Munki, and “Reverence” from Honey’s Dead. The high point for me might have been “Nine Million Rainy Days,” a deep album cut from Darklands that I never dreamed they would play live! The band was tight, the lighting and effects were awesome, and the crowd-made up of people ranging in age from 16 to 60-was clearly made up of hardcore fans like yours truly, who knew and loved the material!
The Furs ended the show and they were tight, polished, and professional in the way that only a band that’s been gigging for decades can be! There were a few of their tracks I would like to have heard that I didn’t, but they did play several of their hits, including “The Ghost In You,” “Love My Way,” and the aforementioned personal favorite: “Heartbreak Beat.”
Afterglow
My olds friends and I ended the evening with an old-school style visit to a greasy spoon; in the old days that would have been Denny’s, but since that establishment is thin on the ground these days, we went with IHOP instead, which was just as good. I made it home at about 1:30am, which is around the time I would have been home from a concert back in the day. In every way, it was an awesome night-as cool as it would have been if it were 1992 again!
The memories of shows like this are amongst the most priceless I have. God Bless all these awesome bands and musicians that have done so much to enhance our lives! May they keep providing the soundtrack for our numbered days for as long as fate allows! As you’ve heard my say on this blog before: if one of your favorite bands tours again, don’t miss them!
Wow, what an incredible, or really magical, sounding night. It is awesome you were able to experience it and have such a great time, see your dear friends, and the performances were pretty much everything you could have hoped for and more!