Troxy, London
The Mary Chain's rendition of their 30-year-old debut LP pales next to their shimmering, poppier later work
The Jesus and Mary Chain were always defined by their notoriety. In 1985, when their 15-minute gigs would frequently collapse into riots and their excitable manager, Alan McGee, was defining them as "art as terrorism", they seemed to be more a happening than a rock'n'roll band.
That year also brought their most brilliant act of agent-provocateur sabotage – their debut album, Psychocandy, its 15 fragile shards of pop melodicism set within towering walls of brittle feedback. The band have in recent years declined all offers to tour the record, feeling it was too closely linked to the febrile, anarchic atmosphere of those early gigs. Tonight, they are finally playing it – but not straight away. "We were going to play Psychocandy, then do other songs as an encore," says singer Jim Reid. "But that seemed a wee bit presumptuous, so we're going to do the encore first."
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