The Jesus and Mary Chain 26/2/2015

I broke my general rule about going to O2 Academy venues but then it was TJ&MC and it was local. I gave the support (The Shimmer Band) a miss to minimise the time in venue but did catch their last track and they seemed like a good guitar based band - lots of noise and distortion. TJ&MC set was in two parts and the intermission was only about two minutes. The first part was a general selection of songs and it started with the impeccable April Skies played slow and melodic - brilliant stuff. There was another six or seven songs some of which I didn't know and one of which featured a track-long sound failure but anything that has that inimitable William Reid guitar is fine by me. The second part of the set was a complete run through of Psychocandy and I was expecting that I would like this less than the general set but the opposite was the case. The Psychocandy set was played with a great dynamic, lots of energy and purpose and basically non-stop with either no or minimal gaps between the tracks. I heard the album anew and I liked it a lot. Excellent gig - I have no idea why the venue wasn't full to overflowing.