The Jesus and Mary Chain played last night at the Fox Theater in Oakland. The old dinosaur granddaddies of shoegaze graced the stage with The Warlocks for a tour of their most recent album, Damage and Joy. Despite having a gnarly chest cold, I decided I'd go anyway. I'd purchased the tickets for the show months ago and I had good seats, so fuck it. As a notoriously shitty live band, not only was I taking the risk they would suck, but I was doing so sober. The one caveat being I was hopped up on enough guaifenesin pills, Advil sinus relief and Flonase nasal spray to kill a bear. This wild, previously outlawed drug cocktail - combined with my body's exhaustion - provided the foundations for a phenomenal show. As it stands right now, I still do not know objectively whether the show was good or bad. For all I know Jim Reid could have been singing both off key and out of sync with the band and I would have had no idea. The whole of the audience behind me could have left in crushing disappointment and I would have still been rocking to their jams. This is the great benefit and detriment of shoegaze; sometimes the wall of sound is so thick that it's hard to tell which way you're facing.
Not every song was a hit, but the ones that stuck really shined. There was one point where I'd lost myself so completely in the music that I'd become disembodied. I was floating somewhere between my seat and the ceiling, like a solitary gull hovering out over a great and gusting sea. They'd taken the song and stretched it out into some druggy, slow-motion, sludgy psychedelic interlude that turned my brain into goo. I was the Jellyfish King. Jim Reid had begun speaking in tongues, sixteen of them simultaneously. It was shamanic. The room had taken on the shape and size of a sonic bubble and, when it finally burst at the song's conclusion, even Jim had to comment on how groovy it was. I'd forgotten about the sort of lush texture and depth of sound that can be achieved within the genre. It's been so long since I've seen someone do it well. Who better than the band that helped to define it?
They played a good mix of new and old stuff and the light show gave the impression of being inside an aquarium. Come to think of it, there was a deeply aqueous feel to the set, as though all of us were slowly drowning in the sound, only coming up briefly for air in between songs.
I'm going down to the place tonight
To see if I can get a taste tonight
A taste of something warm and sweet
That shivers your bones and rises to your heat
I'm going down to the place tonight
The damp and hungry place tonight
Should all the stars shine in the sky
They couldn't outshine your sparkling eyes
But it's so hard to be the one
To touch and tease and to do it all for fun
But it's too much for a young heart to take
Cause hearts are the easiest things you could break
And I talk to the filth and I walk to the door
I'm knee deep in myself
But I want to get more of that stuff
Of that stuff
Some candy talking
Talk
And I want
And I want
Some candy talking
Some candy talk
I love the way she's walking
I love the way she's talking
It's just the way she's walking
It's just the way she's talking
And I need
All that stuff
Give me some
Of that stuff
I want your candy. I want your candy
And I need
Give me some
Of your stuff
Give me some
I want your candy. I want your candy.
I want your candy. I want your candy.
I want stuff
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