Joseph Lichy is introduced to the feedback-rich indie majesty of The Jesus and Mary Chain 

Indie stalwarts The Jesus and Mary Chain - or TJAMC as I’ll call them for the sake of brevity - are brothers Jim and William Reid on vocals and lead guitar respectively with other members coming and going over the years, most notably drummer Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream.

TJAMC formed in 1983 in East Kilbride Scotland, and broke up in 1999, reforming in 2007, famously with Scarlett Johanson joining them onstage for one of the songs.

I arrived at last night's show with a friend, both of us old enough (pretty much) to remember TJAMC in their heyday.

My friend had seen The Chain - as he called them - at least five times. I felt it was a good time to admit that I'd never actually heard even one of their songs.

The opener was a Pixies cover, Head On from their 1991 album Trompe le Monde. Great Pixies song I shouted across to my friend. Wrong. The set was loud, Indie band loud, but I still understood my friend setting the facts straight for me. It was a TJAMC song from their '89 from album Automatic that the Pixies had covered, not the other way round.

That little fact made me pay more attention, my friend commenting on the old songs - the crowd delighted - and the newer material, the crowd less so.

The set picked up, however, singer Jim Reid power balladding out themes of death, loss and unrequited love matched with his bother accompanying him with rather beautiful melodic lead.

Something great about the gig was the atmosphere, the crowd clearly having deadhead-like loyalty. There were also some transcendental moments, when you felt like closing your eyes and being part of the bass vibration and the particular indie euphoria of the melody. This almost overcame the fact that the beer was flat and too many people were filming with mobile phones, giving the impression that they weren’t fully present, saving the memories for later instead.

In any case I’m sure the band sounded as they should, and somehow their age added to what is at stake in emotional rawness instead of detracting.

The age of the audience were old as they should be too, though I couldn't help noticing that the audience had mostly kept their hair. A few weeks previously I had been to an Orb concert in Brixton, (the band formed in 1988) and the audience were mostly bald which although made for slightly easier viewing, led me to suspect that the pychotropic intake of ravers has been harder on the body than the intake of TJAMC concert-goers.

JOSEPH LICHY 3/5