69. The Jesus and Mary Chain

TROXY

19 November 2014

In 1883, Krakatoa erupted with such biblical force that it was heard three thousand miles away, caused fifty-metre-high tsunamis, and generally made life quite inconvenient for a lot of people. And yet, in comparison to the sonic apocalypse unleashed by The Jesus and Mary Chain at the Troxy, Krakatoa might as well have been a polite cough in a library.

Douglas Adams once wrote about Disaster Area, a band so loud they had to be listened to from a concrete bunker thirty-seven miles away. That was supposed to be satire. But I can now confirm, first-hand, that this band has turned it into reality.

Both my so-called gig buddies had bailed on me for this gig, leaving me to fend for myself in what can only be described as an audio warzone. And, in a move of staggering idiocy, I wandered dangerously close to the front of the stage, perilously near a stack of Marshalls so big it looked like it had been designed to communicate with extraterrestrials. I lost my hearing for a full day. Possibly longer. There’s a chance I’m still not fully back and I am still considering reporting this band for violating several UN weapons treaties.

This was a full live play through of Psychocandy, their noise-drenched, distortion-drenched, everything-drenched classic. And my god, it was brutal. The guitar sound was less an instrument and more of a blunt-force trauma event, the sheer weight of fuzz and feedback leading me to seriously consider getting scanned for CTE. From the moment Just Like Honey came crackling out, inducing nosebleeds in the first three rows, we were all transported back to 1985, back to those doomed teenage crushes, back to that slightly gothy girl who smoked Silk Cut behind the Sixth Form block.  Perhaps that was just me.