The Jesus and Mary Chain and Psychedelic Furs played the Orpheum – 10/2
The co-headlining fall tour from ’80s contemporaries the JAMC and P Furs rolled into Boston’s Orpheum Theatre last week with support from Frankie Rose.
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I don’t see a whole lot of shows at the Orpheum these days. In a Boston landscape that’s seen an influx of flashy new midsize venues the past couple years (for better or worse; we love Roadrunner, we’ve got issues with MGM), the long-running downtown theater and its aging infrastructure have simply seen fewer and fewer noteworthy bookings come through. Last week’s team-up of ’80s alternative favs in The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Psychedelic Furs, though, was a flashback to the venue’s heyday that wouldn’t have felt quite the same somewhere else.
That’s not to suggest that either act are treading the nostalgia circuit; both bands, who are still active in the studio too, sounded vital as ever.
The Mary Chain, led by Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid, served as the first of the night’s co-headliners with a throttling set of their trailblazing noise-pop. The band’s early singles and debut LP Psychocandy practically wrote the book on melding golden age pop aesthetics with earsplitting guitar squall, and some 40 years later they’re still masters of the trade. Beyond the Reids – Jim on vocals, William on guitar – the band has long been a revolving door of contributors, but the current trio behind them was a tight, disciplined unit on early cuts, moody Darklands favorites, 90’s heaters like the set-closing “Reverence” and some new tunes from this year’s Glasgow Eyes. All the while, the band retained a calculated air of cool on stage, cast in shadows, candy-colored backlight and blasts of fog. We were a long ways from the chaotic and violent lore of early JAMC gigs, but the effect was potent as ever.
Closing out the night, the London-spawned Psychedelic Furs countered the shadows with the light. Also led by a pair of brothers in singer Richard Butler and sibling Tim on bass, the Furs launched into a sparkling set of the new wave/post-punk that’s made them an enduring favorite. Butler the former was a frontman’s frontman, traversing the stage and using the Orpheum’s up-close-and-personal orchestra section to great audience-engagement effect. The five-piece, also featuring a mix of veterans and relative newcomers on guitars, drums and keys, sounded excellent in a setlist packed with favorites (“Love My Way” is always a highlight) and undoubtedly sent the crowd home happy.
Opener Frankie Rose was a subdued but strong fit for the night, performing her darkwave dream-pop with a two-piece band enshrouded by an evocative set of projection art. See photos of all three sets below.
