Jesus and Mary Chain

Press, 24 September 1988, Page 8

Jesus and Mary Chain

The Jesus and Mary Chain, supported by Straitjacket Fits, at the Theatre Royal last evening. Reviewed by Tony Green. Schizophrenia ruled at the Theatre Royal last night, as the Jesus and Mary Chain played an hour of the most unpredictable rock’n’roll ever seen in the Garden City. The Scottish band, dogged in the past couple of days by the ridiculous “Gothic” music backlash almost ruined the show with huge gaps between each song — gaps that seemed like musical grand canyons in the austerity of the Theatre Royal. In addition, the lead singer, Jim “Motormouth” Reid, spent most of the time practising blank-gen-eration javelin with his mikestand, and avoiding all communication with the big but puzzled crowd. When they did eventually start each song, however, they were great, delivering some of the most, potent guitar rock thafg, Christchurch has

ever seen. For this gig, the Mary Chain added a drummer and second guitarist to the nucleus of the Reid brothers, William and Jim, and the bassist, Douglas Hart. The resultant sound, aided by a terrific light show (and some not-so-great dry ice), was big and beautiful thumping from the speakers with a 100 per cent non-Gothic sparkle! ' The songs covered all three of their L.P.S, and apart from the odd aberration such as their turgid "Who Do You Love,” most were cutting examples of their psychopop sound — none better than a new one called (I think) “On The Road,” a William Reid tour-de-force. I don’t know whether many of the crowd left the theatre with any great love for the Jesus and Mary Chain — as a show, it was a stinker. But, among the low points was some crucial 1980 s pop, as enjoyable as anything I’ve seen. A weirdy but wonderful